<p>Question: does race really make as much difference to applications as everyone seems to make out? The opening gambit of many non-caucasians always seems to be a description of their race, case in point Envoy707 above “African-American (Biracial).”</p>
<p>So are you saying unis actually take this into account when admitting people? From a foreigners perspective this seems as positively discriminatory as not letting an African American on a bus is negatively. Or am I missing something?</p>
<p>^Nope, you’re pretty much spot-on.</p>
<p>^^ Yes, you are. Not letting an African American on a bus is grounded in prejudice and exclusion. Affirmative action is an effort to overcome this kind of prejudice through inclusion. Nobody’s getting denied college admission strictly because of his/her race, nor is anybody strictly being admitted to college because of race, so your analogy doesn’t really fit.</p>
<p>But judging someone, whether partially or totally, either positively or negatively based upon their race is racism. By definition.</p>
<p>Anyway, I can understand, to a extent, why it is taken in to account somewhat - to perhaps redress prejudices, etc. But, my point is, why is it so often in the first handful of things someone posts on here about their stats? I could understand if it was down the list next to “I played hockey for school” or something, but to have it alongside SAT/rank/GPA/etc, seems a bit mental? </p>
<p>So, I suppose to clarify my post a bit, how important is it? In the list of things taken into account by unis where does it come?</p>
<p>SAT
Rank
GPA
EC
Passions
etc</p>
<p>and race???</p>
<p>Can we please not get into this here?</p>
<p>^ you’re probably right. it wasn’t meant as an inflammatory discussion - it’s just different and I was curious.</p>
<p>If you want to read more about it, there are multiple race/ethnicity discussion threads. I think they’re on the 7th now</p>
<p>bigboba, each college or university weights their admissions factors differently. You can get some sense as to what Yale (for example) thinks is important by consulting the Admissions page of each school’s College Board Search information:</p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Yale University - Admission](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>According to this Yale considers these factors very important:</p>
<pre><code>* Character/Personal Qualities
<p>and gives some consideration to these factors:</p>
<pre><code>* Alumni Relation
<p>This is not to say that equal weighting is assigned to each factor in a group. Almost universally college admissions officers will tell you the most important factor is your course transcript whereby they can determine the rigor of the courses you have taken as well as how well you have performed. This overrides GPA and class rank, for which there are widely varying schemes (for example some high schools weight grades by course level and others do not but nevertheless determine rank by GPA) as well as widely varying standards. As I infer you are an international student, you might be surprised to find that SAT/ACT test scores are of lesser importance, although still significant.</p>
<p>As for race, you can see that Yale says it is a less important but not completely overlooked factor. Please understand there are many long, passionate, but ultimately tedious threads on CC regarding this topic (race discrimination and its redress are unfortunately a huge part of American history and heritage) and few are eager to see it rehashed here.</p>
<p>OK, so the bottomline is that NO ONE on this forum has a percent chance at acceptance higher than 7% based on collegeboard data. The reality is that perfect SAT scorers get rejected from Yale all the time, and so do sports captains, student body presidents, “asians from NJ” (lol), etc…</p>
<p>There is no use debating whether you have a chance getting in unless u feel like you’re below the bar which means that you’re below 7%. Every single person here deserves to get in because they’ve worked REALLY hard, but that doesn’t mean that they will, so just kick back and relax for another 45 more days or so and you’ll have your answer…</p>
<p>^ @ overachiever 92,</p>
<p>I refrained from chancing myself, because I don’t feel like I’d know where to begin. With that said, a very good amount of people on this thread DO have a better than 7% chance (or 13ish% SCEA without accounting for legacies/athletes).</p>
<p>The average applicant applying to Yale does not have a 2300+ score, unlike the majority on this thread. Doesn’t mean they’ll get in, doesn’t mean they should, but it does mean that saying they have a 7% chance isn’t entirely accurate.</p>
<p>No, some people do have better than a 7% chance. It’s an acceptance rate, not a probability.</p>
<p>^ well said jgraider.</p>
<p>^I see ur point</p>
<p>But I was still right about kicking back and relaxing :D.</p>
<p>(Although I’m not applying SCEA)</p>
<p>^I’ll relax in April (or Dec if the miracle happens!!).</p>
<p>I’m relaxed, since I know I won’t get in. Good luck to all who applied SCEA!</p>
<p>^Lol, way to rub that “Location: Harvard '14” in our faces. Thanks, though!</p>
<p>:). Hey it was a tough choice between Harvard and Yale. There are a lot of qualified people who are applying, and they feel like Yale is their future home for 4 years. I can only say they won’t be disappointed and wish them luck in gaining acceptance to this stellar school.</p>
<p>2% accepted, 49% deferred, 49% rejected.
Sigh…</p>
<p>Just thought I’d bump this up.
One question, though:
If I submitted two ACT scores, will they take the higher comp. one? Or will they also consider the lower one? I epically failed on the essay the first go 'round, but I managed to raise two sections, my composite, and my writing on the second one.</p>
<p>I have an idea: Instead of considering the highest scores from all test sections, yale should consider the lowest scores from all test sections.</p>