Yale SCEA rejection- Ivies/top schools still possible?

Applying to College
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Hello. As you may have gleaned from the title, I applied to Yale scea and was unfortunately rejected.

I would like to know if it is still a possibility for me to be accepted at other ivies or schools of similar caliber (including top lacs). Important updates include that this semester I will be president of the Society of Women Engineers (nationally recognized/affiliated club). I have also been doing well in my classes, which I think will be especially significant for math as I’m taking BC this year and struggled greatly with math freshman year. A big reason why my gpa is lower than it could be was because of geometry and physics (both taken freshman year). I also edited many of my supplements after being rejected and (while this is subjective) I think most are better than what I submitted to Yale, especially my “why us” essays.

My stats are as follows:

Background: I am a rising senior at a competitive public hs in nyc, and I am female.

GPA: ~96 W and ~92 UW I have a strong upward trend,a s in first semester freshman year I had ~89W while last semester I had ~103W. My freshman grades were really dragged down by geometry and physics, but I’ve done well in math/science since then

Test scores: 1540 super score on SAT reading: 780 math: 760

AP Euro 4
AP Computer Science Principles 5
APUSH 5
AP Lang and Comp 5
AP Environmental 5

This year taking:
AP Macroeconomics
AP Literature
AP Calc BC (double period)
AP Human Geo
PLTW Environmental Sustainability (double period)

Extra Curricular

Clubs- Freshman: I did have some, did have room on app
Sophomore: Model UN, Society of Women Engineers(SWE)
Junior: Model UN( mentored new members), SWE, Feminist Book Club
Senior: Same as junior. Now president of SWE.

Volunteering- planted garden at a city park last summer(volunteer internship)
I have been volunteering at the nature center/preserve in my neighborhood through this year and plan to continue next year
Volunteered at library last summer

Other- photography, I was named a water ambassador for my entry into the DEP art and poetry water resources contest (I’m not sure though how competitive this award is). I have also been documenting the various plants/animals at the nature center

Environmental advocacy, made flyers for various local environmental problems and spread awareness about issues

Nationally Certified Lifeguard

Helped write lesson plans (for middle/hs students) with my environmental science teacher/a few other students (but we wrote the lessons individually and our teacher reviewed them) for Harvard Forest over this summer. Also participated in research with Harvard Forest (ecology/climate change),but this was in school as part of AP Environmental Science so I’m not sure how it’s viewed.

Responsibilities with helping care for my younger brother who has autism.

I’m applying as a anthropology major (with environmental studies as second choice). For the colleges with essay about topics interested in as well as “why us” essays I talked about the link between the topics and the research I’m interested in doing regarding the intersection of the fields.

I apologize for the length of this but thank you to anyone who reads and responds!

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Yes it’s possible for you to be accepted to another top school. But make sure you have other applications in for less competitive schools as well.

And if you are applying for college now, you are not a “rising senior”. That refers to students who have finished their junior year and are not yet started with senior year. You are a HS senior.

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I’m sorry you did not get the news you were hoping for at Yale. Quick question: President of SWE but looking to study anthropology?

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I do have a bunch of less competitive schools, of course!

My bad with the “rising senior” I had copy and pasted from a post I made over the summer whoops

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First of all, yes it is possible for you to get accepted to a different highly ranked university. In fact, many years ago exactly that happened to me when applying to graduate schools. I was rejected by Cornell, and a couple of weeks later got accepted to Stanford. Years later I finally realized that Stanford had always been a better fit for me.

Top schools may differ in terms of how much they care about your freshman year of high school. They also are each looking for students who will be a good fit for them. You might have the same result that I had, where a different highly ranked university might feel that you are a good fit for them.

However, if you are intending to major in almost anything else other than investment banking, prestige will not matter much and you can do well at a very wide range of universities. If you were to graduate from a university on the Yale, Stanford, … level, then after graduation you will find yourself working alongside graduates from a very wide range of universities and no one will care where anyone got their degrees. At least to me, anthropology and environmental studies are areas where some graduate school is possible. Again if you look at students at the top graduate schools, they will have come from a very wide range of undergraduate universities.

And you have some very good in-state public universities in New York.

I also wondered about this.

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I think I may want to also study computer science (probably double major). I didn’t put this on my application because none of the schools I’m applying to admit by major and considering my history of comparatively low marks in math I was afraid it might hurt me to mention it.

Also like I said I listed environmental science on my app so I figure it’s still in line with STEM

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That is reassuring news for sure!

My safeties are some of the SUNY schools, I’ve been accepted to all the ones I applied to (Stony Brook, Binghamton, Buffalo, Albany)

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Is your application pretty cohesive without mentioning you want to do CS with your engineering stuff? My child’s math grades are not as strong as possibly other CS applicants but she was deferred from same school even with lower math grades- I think it’s because they saw her passion and genuine desire to do CS even though she prob didn’t have same stats as others. But her app was very cohesive about CS since related to many of her STEM ECs.

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Agree with others: your activities, especially the president of SWE, strongly hint you want engineering/STEM. However, you only took one physics class and did not do well, plus you did not take AP chem or Bio, at least one of which would be expected with someone of your interests (in addition to higher level physics if your school offers it).

Since Yale lets any freshman study anything, any admit could take engineering or Stem. Applicants who have murky or overlapping interests have to show they would succeed in any area of study. Your transcript is not competitive for this specific situation. I think most highly competitive schools that do not have a direct admit to Engineering will have similar reservations.
Do not fret, though, as this only applies to a few schools in the country! There are so many great schools outside of the Cc-favortie-top20 that would love to have an excellent student like you withthe interdisciplinary interests!

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You already have some great schools to attend, so no need to feel stressed about top schools, unless their financial aid is needed. It is really impossible to “chance” anyone for top schools.

I am curious about your interest in anthropology. Did you explain this in essays? I see tat you liked it to environmental studies in essays and would be interested in the gist of what you wrote.

Taking care of a brother with autism was, to me, the most interesting item in your list. How much responsibility have you handled?

Good luck- but you are already fine!

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If a school has a deadline that hasn’t passed, sure you can get in. Will you ?

Only one way to know.

What you’ll learn about the CC. No one here is an admission counselor.

I might shy away from schools with high ED percentages and schools that use demonstrated interest.

But you’ll be fine because in life, you moreso than the school you attend, will impact your future. And for CS, often the top schools are not top schools.

Here’s a list of top anthropology schools. SUNYB is mentioned.

Good luck.

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Regarding anthropology I’ve really started to become interested in it this year because of AP Human Geography. In my essays I talked about how I want to do research/take classes that combine anthro with environmental science/sustainability to ensure that environmental solutions also take into account the interests of those that would be affected.

For taking care of my brother: I generally help him with daily tasks like teeth brushing, picking out clothes to wear, etc. I also help him with hw and keep help entertain/supervise him outside of school.

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Environmentalism/environmental science is a pretty big part of my application and like I said before I linked that to anthropology/humanities. I’m hoping my involvement in swe will be interpreted a bit more broadly to fit with environmental science.

Now that I’ve thought about it a bit more (cohesiveness) I wonder if swe could also be interpreted as being part of a feminist “theme” of sorts when taking into consideration my involvement with the Feminist Book Club. This I think is a little shakier though as I don’t know if admissions officers will read into it that much since I don’t make a point of making that link clear.

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I don’t think you have to connect everything you do and are interested in.

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I don’t think so either but since someone asked about cohesiveness I was just trying to figure out ways my application could be seen as cohesive.

But regarding the subject, how much do you (or anyone else) think cohesion matters?

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I will PM you.

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Just my opinion: I do not think that this matters. I have heard that the majority of students change their major after arriving on-campus. Both daughters did. I did not even choose a major until the end of my freshman year.

I think that being genuine does matter. Do what is right for you, and do it well. I think that you are doing well in this regard.

Regarding “cohesiveness” I might have a different answer if you were applying to graduate schools, but that is years in the future.

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I think you do the things you enjoy. You do them for you. And that’s good enough.

You need to be yourself, not someone that someone may or may not want u to be.

I think like your course selection this is being over analyzed too. After all no matter how perfect you think you make yourself, there are no guarantees.

Do what you like, make an impact and hopefully you can quantify your efforts.

Be yourself. And some school some where will get a great asset.

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Okay thank you for letting me know. It’s easy to get paranoid about stuff people say but I guess that’s kind of my fault for posting on a cc forum haha

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It’s completely expected for someone who is applying to several T20 schools to see some rejections. Being accepted into every T20 school would be the exception.

So - having one or multiple rejections (or acceptances) doesn’t change the odds for the next decision.