Yale Undergraduate Early Action

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hello CC,</p>

<p>I would greatly appreciate it if you all would be so kind as to share your thoughts on my chances at being accepted by Yale early. My resume is below.</p>

<p>Music
- Violin for 13 years
- Winner of Golden Key Competition at Carnegie Hall
- Certified lvl 8 by Royal Board of Music for performance, lvl 5 for theory
- New Jersey All-State Orchestra
- Concertmeister of School Orchestra</p>

<p>Model United Nations
- 1st place at Yale MUN
- 3rd place at Princeton MUN
- Senior Advisor</p>

<p>School Tour Guide
- Senior Advisory Board</p>

<p>Science Olympiad
- 1st in NJ on individaul event</p>

<p>Community Service
- 500 hrs total
- Violin teaching to kids
- Worked at Teach for China</p>

<p>Sports
- Varsity Hockey
- Varsity Golf</p>

<p>Newespaper
- News Editor</p>

<p>GPA - 3.7
SAT I - 2260
ACT - 35 equivalent to SAT 2350
SAT II - 790, 770, 750
AP's - 5 taken, all 5's
Attending top 5 prep school
GPA is deflated</p>

<p>My high school on average has 15 students apply early with 5 being accepted. My GPA is a bit low, but my grades over the past 3 trimesters have been 3.6, 3.7, 3.9
I am expecting a 4.0 this term. My father is a Yale SOM alum, and I actually lived in New Haven for 2 years while he earned his masters. I currently live in New Jersey, and I attend a top private prep school. So what do you all think? Do I have a chance? If I have ommitted some information that would be helpful, post below and I'll add it. Anyways thanks in advance and good luck to everyone.</p>

2

<p>Scores are decent, GPA is a little low, albeit not bad if your school doesn’t inflate grades heavily. Your real problem is extracurriculars - they are unremarkable and show little passion or achievement. Given this fact, chances at Yale SCEA are rather low.</p>

3

<p>^hows OP’s EC’s “not remarkable?” Stop judging others based on what you have…OP’s ec’s are terrific. How’s playing at carnegie hall and TWO varsity sports “little passion or achievement?” Are you kidding me? What do u want him to do? Win the Nobel peace prize a million times. Give me a break. People on this forum sicken me sometimes…</p>

4

<p>Thanks to both Andrew Sun and Mr. Special Air Service Sniper for taking the time and effort to respond. In terms of a passionate and unique extra-curricular, I plan to write about my experience at Teach for China. TFC is a sister organization of the highly lauded Teach for America organization which, by the way, receives more applicants from Harvard than prestigious firms such as Goldman Sachs. I spent two months this past summer in rural Yunnan, China teaching underprivileged children english, and more importantly, the value of education. That is the backbone of my common app essay. Do you think that this is “passionate” and/or shows enough “achievement?”</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Good question.</p>

<p>I didn’t consider playing in Carnegie Hall to be a particularly notable EC because in my experience, the primary prerequisite for such an engagement is money to book the venue rather then unusual talent. I know a number of high school students that have played there, and all but one were unremarkable musicians. If I am incorrect and you won a significant competition to appear there then I apologize: your chances are higher then I originally predicted. </p>

<p>Varsity sports are in fact major commitments, but they suffer from the same issues that other common extracurriculars do - a limited number of students (recruited athletes) are admitted specifically for their athletic abilities, and that leaves few spots in the incoming class for people that are just “very good” at athletics. I am under the impression that the OP is not being recruited, so this would be an issue in his case.</p>

<p>(regarding going to China)

</p>

<p>Depends. It could make an interesting essay, which would appreciably help your chances, but for the actual activity you can get a decent idea of it’s effect on admissions by asking yourself three questions:</p>

<ol>
<li>Is the program you participated in selective?</li>
<li>Was the program free/somehow subsidized, or did you pay full freight?</li>
<li>If not (1) and (2), did you somehow go beyond the general expectations of the program to do something unusual, different, useful or impressive?</li>
<li>If not (1), (2), or (3), did your experience legitimately change your outlook on life (positively) in a way likely to be corroborated by your counselor, teachers, or other recommenders?</li>
</ol>

<p>Admittedly 1 and 2 tend to overlap for most of the famous programs, but as a general rule if you can answer yes to any one of these questions you have an excellent activity. Otherwise I refer you to this [this</a> post by the MIT director of admissions.](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/esse-quam-videri]this”>Esse quam videri | MIT Admissions)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>If I was so inclined, I could go post on every 1400 SAT/ 2.0 GPA Harvard hopeful’s thread and tell them that they had excellent chances of getting in everywhere. I would be lying. The purpose of this forum is to estimate peoples chances of admission to a given, generally highly selective university. Providing anything other then a best possible estimate would be doing the OP a disservice. And yes - it is an estimate, so there’s no need to be angry.</p>

<p>Oh, and since you bring it up, winning the Nobel Peace prize would probably get you in, so long as you’re more of a Martin Luther King then a Yasser Arafat.</p>

6

<p>your violin playing itself is a whole world of EC, that looks outstanding, kicks the **** out of my 10 years of Tae Kwon Do anyway :stuck_out_tongue: </p>

<p>your grades all look really good, i think you definitely have a shot. my sister got into and currently goes to yale (it really is a great school i hope you get in!) and her grades were like 96.4 average, same SATs basically and even less curriculars (she did Tae Kwon Do with me) but she was also captain of 2 varsity teams. to sum up, i think you definitely have a shot compared to my sister</p>

7

<p>I think it’s a low reach - you definitely stand a decent chance, but let’s face it - it’s yale :]</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1205870-chance-low-gpa-high-sat-good-college-grades.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1205870-chance-low-gpa-high-sat-good-college-grades.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Snipersas-I understand where you’re coming from and you bring up many valid points. But I think not everyone is doing ec’s to win prestigious awards, get recruited, or otherwise. They are doing it because the activities are actually enjoyable. I mean once you’re in college, anyone can do any ec they want. No one really gives a darn if you really deserved to go to the carnegie hall or not. Btw, not to defend the OP and only attack you, OP has a 35 ACT, pretty good grades in a good prep school, so Yale SCEA is actually a low reach. just my opinions tho.</p>

9

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<p>I agree that it truly doesn’t matter once you get there - the question is whether or not adcoms know the difficulty of playing there. Given that I personally know a number of people who did so despite a lack of talent, I am guessing that adcoms, who personally read 1000+ applications per year, suppose the same thing. They could think differently, but I would never put money on buffaloing an adcom into a positive decision on anything other then rock-solid credentials.</p>

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<p>Of course - I couldn’t personally name anyone that does extracurriculars just to win awards, and they don’t mean everything. They do however demonstrate depth of involvement, which is why they tend to be handy predictors of admissions success.</p>

10

<p>Well, to put the music question to rest, I will be submitting a supplemental recording of my playing for good measure. That way, there can be no question as to the actual competitiveness of my Violin skill level. Also just for the record, there were two rounds of auditions for the competition I participated in before the winners were selected to play at Carnegie. And by the way, thanks to all for responding.</p>

11

<p>You will definitely be considered competitive, but tbh HYPSM are so competitive nowdays that no one is considered a shoo-in. Good Luck! I hope you get in… yale is an amazing school :D</p>

12

<p>BUMP! Any more perspectives on my chances? Thanks again to those that have already posted.</p>

13

<p>Carnegie Hall is pretty freaking important and I’m pretty sure that people who went to Yale at least have an idea of how difficult it is to get there…</p>

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<p>I’ve seen unremarkable. That’s not unremarkable… at all…</p>