<p>Congrats to those who got a likely! I would love to go to YES-W and Yale, so I’ve got my fingers crossed. 
What sorts of science-related ECs were you involved in?</p>
<p>have any engineers been contacted yet (specifically BME)? i’m assuming it’d take them extra time to read the why engineering? essays. </p>
<p>also, how do they narrow down the candidates for YES-W from the thousands of science students that most likely apply to 108 (as it was last year). what sort of ecs do they look for? how do students demonstrate interest in majors that don’t require an extra essay (computer science) and how are they so sure of science commitment? </p>
<p>i’m very confused at this point in time as you guys can probably tell, and any clarification would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>ccer222: My daughter got the likely letter last year, and she had a number of science awards from her school, was a state level siemens AP award winner, and also had done a very science-intensive summer program following junior year. Her common app essay was about that experience. I don’t know about others, but in her case she was clearly “cal tech worthy” caliber, and was in fact also accepted to cal tech.</p>
<p>Congrats to all who got called.</p>
<p>When did you have your interviews if any? Thanks.</p>
<p>donna: did your daughter matriculate to Yale? If so, can you share some of the reasons she chose Yale over Cal Tech or other top Science/engineering schools? Is it meeting her expectations or are there some shortcomings that perhaps other schools may have met?</p>
<p>T26E4; I’ll attempt to keep her identity private but she is a freshman at Yale, and enjoying it. She wanted a full liberal arts experience rather than a more narrow tech-focused one. She also likes the urban environment and rather arty culture of yale, over some more suburban campuses she was considering. She’s still in first year “intro” type courses, so it’s hard to make a real critique yet. I think she’ll have to wait a couple more years to know!</p>
<p>I think choosing Yale over Caltech for a CS education is justifiable but turning down Stanford or MIT is a grave mistake. If you’re actually interested in doing something related to CS after graduation and not switching over to finance or consulting, then the opportunities for research and on-campus recruiting at Yale will not even be comparable to S and M.</p>
<p>There’s a reason Yale feels obliged to send Likely Letters to top prospective CS students in the country and Stanford/MIT do not. ;)</p>
<p>My son got a call from Yale Admissions on January 24th and a likely letter a couple of days after that. He, too, is into computer science and math. He’s going to the YES-W event coming up and is very excited. We didn’t even know about the existence of LL’s until he got the call. He also applied to Stanford, MIT and Carnegie Mellon, so it will be interesting to see how Yale stacks up.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses donnaleighg and congrats to your daughter and the others on this thread who’ve received likelies! </p>
<p>interestingly enough, it seems as if everyone who has been contacted so far is either majoring in CS or Math.</p>
<p>In the IVY league, CS programs in Princeton, Harvard and Cornell are significantly stronger. Yale CS is not in the same league of MIT and Stanford. If you are not entirely sure that CS is your choice, Yale is a good consideration. But you are dead set on CS, you may regret it. Even you enjoy your student life in Yale campus, you will have “what if” in your mind from time to time, if you turn down the power house schools.</p>
<p>I got the likely call to and I was very excited. I will be majoring in Bioengineering/ Biochemical Engineering. I am excited about Yale even though I was admitted early to CALTECH and also just been admitted to USC. I am going to check out Yale— may be I might like it. Only problem I live on the West Coast where it is nice and warm. This will be good for me to check out the weather during this time ohf the year when it is cold. Congratulations to all the top students who got likely letters. Thank you Yale for considering us. That call was great and felt good to feel wanted. I will always remember Yale.</p>
<p>I meant Biomedical Engineering or Bioengineering. Looking forward to meeting all of you on the 18th of February.</p>
<p>Are people still receiving phone calls?</p>
<p>I’m fairly certain the answer is no. All of the people I know who received a likely letter did so within about a day of each other.</p>
<p>The Admin officer who spoke with my son said that approx 120 applicants out of 24,000 were sent LL’s. Given that that’s less than 1/2 of 1% of all applicants, it’s clearly not a big way around the April 1 date.</p>
<p>I disagree with underachiever about it being so clear-cut about other CS departments… I do agree about MIT and Stanford however.</p>
<p>These are academic letters given out specifically to likely STEM students being invited to the special event on 18th with tickets paid for.</p>
<p>They did about the same number last year (or 150).</p>
<p>If Yale identifies future “Zuckerberg” or “Gates” then recruit them however you can. A piece of facebook donation could make Yale CS the strongest.</p>
<p>My son didn’t get any likely letter and that was a bit surprising considering that he had been accepted to mit—national science competition finalist, intel sts semi, amazing academic and ecs…He loved mit but we would like to see if Yale gave more financial aid since it will be a big factor for our decision. Does it mean that he has no chance in Yale now? anyone any experience?</p>
<p>^It absolutely does not. There is misinformation in this thread that’s bound to scare applicants. This statement in particular is misleading:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, at schools that use binding ED, a large percentage of the class may be locked in before April 1. Many recruited athletes are also locked in before April 1. And a bunch of kids who may or may not matriculate are admitted via the SCEA process. But here’s the important thing: Students admitted via academic likelies are few and far between at most highly selective schools. </p>
<p>With the exception of some recruited athletes, the vast majority of students who are admitted to Yale and other highly selective schools do <em>not</em> receive likely letters. (Dartmouth may be an exception.) That was certainly my son’s situation. Multiple acceptances and nary a likely letter. Take a look at some of the old acceptance threads for verification that the vast majority of students are admitted via RD.</p>