Yale University Early Action for Fall 2023 Admission

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
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Up until very recently, Yale offered interviews to every candidate, or at least tried to do so. With the recent explosion of applications to top universities, they have had to dial back on that promise. Now they offer interviews if they have an alumnus available. And they try to prioritize people about whom they need more information.

If everything in your application paints a consistent picture, especially if you come from a high school that regularly sends kids to Yale, they have a clear idea of you as a candidate.

If you are an athletic recruit, you already have a point of contact.

If there are inconsistencies in the application, or if you have amazing achievements in purely solitary fields but no real information about how you work with others, or maybe you come from a school with which they are less familiar, or maybe the teacher recommendations were general and vague (which could mean you didn’t really connect or it can mean these teachers have no idea how to write a recommendation), then an interview can provide useful information about a candidate.

Most of the time, however, interviews just confirm what the committee can read from your application. They keep alumni involved and help with yield for accepted students
but aren’t an essential part of the admissions decision.

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Thanks so much for this information!

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I also want to point out that although they prioritize candidates about whom they need more information, getting an interview does not mean they felt they needed more information. It could just be that you are in an area where there are plenty of alumni available to do interviews.

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Understood. Thanks again. All this information is great.

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Nice number.

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Thanks for sharing this. That’s a huge number.

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Thinking daughter made a huge mistake not taking advantage of early decision elsewhere. She has almost perfect stats for a public school kid, urm, but
. So do the other 7000+ applicants.

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At least it’s not the largest!

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You’re right. But I heard every other good school out there is getting a larger-than-usual number of early applicants since the pandemic. One of the reasons I think is because the standardized test scores have been optional since then. Best wishes to everyone who applied👍

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If she really wants to go to Yale then her chances increase with EA, right? She’ll probably get into a lot of other places easily with good stats, so good to try for Yale, I think! Good luck to her!

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FWIW, I was accepted Yale RD this past year and received a super late interview request (like 2-3 weeks before decisions released).

I do not know if this is standard, but my interviewer made it clear that his report would be “useful for the committee in making a final decision on my application” and urged me to “prepare in advance”. The overall vibe of the interview was also more serious than all my other interviews.

I think I may have been borderline (between admit/waitlist maybe?) and they used the interview as a sort of “tie-breaker”

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The base statistics for REA are a bit deceiving. Last year there was a 10.9% acceptance rate on 7,300 applicants (800 admits according to its press release last December). Over 200 are athletes, there will also be development admits and a high proportion of legacies. The REA pool is also generally stronger than the RD pool. IMO the chances for an unhooked REA applicant are probably not much favorable than RD. However, if the applicant has a special talent, the proverbial tuba player, he/she probably has a better chance REA before that spot potentially gets filled by another “tuba payer”.

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Thanks for the information. No interview for my daughter yet, but we’ll see. Good luck to you at Yale.

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200 out of the ~800 early admits are athletes? And the legacy/other hooks on top of that? Ok, we won’t keep our hopes up then :blush:
Thanks for the info.

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Yikes, that scenario would be terrifying for my shy son! You must have done well!

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Ah, that makes sense, I wasn’t thinking about athletes. Can you tell me what “unhooked” means? My applicant is not a tuba player but does play an instrument at a high level so hopefully that will factor in.

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Unhooked typically means not :

  • Recruited athlete
  • URM
  • Child of major donor (potential donor) or famous/powerful person
  • Legacy
  • Child of faculty
  • First gen (parents did not attend college)

When I used “tuba player”, it means an applicant with a unique/rare talent. Being a high level musician definitely is a plus. The higher the level/accolades and the rarer the instrument will create a greater “spike”.

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Thank you for the info!

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My daughter plays harp, but she doesn’t explicitly mention it (just a casual mention in one of her answers). She didn’t think it was worth mentioning her musical talents as they aren’t related to the major(s) she’s interested in. I think we can send an application update, but is it worth it?

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Yes, it is her #1 choice so unfortunately ed’ing elsewhere wasn’t for her. However, she went to a couple of school presentations - wash U stvLouis for example, said they fill over 60% of their class with ed1 and wd2. So although a strong candidate for Yale, Ed to another t20 ischool would have been the most advantageous move, in my opinion. But not my application, so I wait!

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