Where are you getting these stats?
In the period before selective interviews, there were certainly âcourtesyâ legacy interviews. Recently, a very good friend/couple of mineâs kid, double legacy/double URM, did not get an SCEA interview. I thought it meant she was in. Instead deferred/rejected. Sheâs at Columbia, so it was not an app issue. I think legacies are still guaranteed 2 readers, so maybe the likelihood of getting an interview is slightly higher, but I just donât know.
So if one gets an interview, can we assume that they made it past the stats stage? Do they âwasteâ an interview on an auto-reject?
Through analytical/logical reasoning, because the underlying truth cannot be seen from the surface but can be reflected from many fragmented pieces of information. You need to dig deep to discover the truth by piecing together so many small pieces.
First, 9,000 interviews out of 54,000 applicants, leading to the first 1/6. The remaining are direct admits, either too phenomenal or lump-sum donors or legacies or athletes, whatever you call them but without an interview. With these admits the second number would become much less. Since AO issues offers without interviews, so ~1/6 interviewees will get accepted based on best-educated estimate.
Here another analytical/logical reasoning chimes in: since Yale has a yield at ~2/3, based on the fact that Yaleâs matriculants number is 1702 in the class of 2027, so the total admits would be ~2500. Without direct admits from those without interviews, the second number would be very close to ~1/3, but with direct admits without interviews, the number would drop to the neighborhood of ~1/6.
Sure, even Yale wants to improve its yield, the enrollment divided by total admits, and interviewers have an in-person contact/impact on those interviewees, so people often heard interviewers did the most talk while interviewees have little talk at all, because Yale wants to convince those qualified applicants to come for enrollment in order to improve the yield. From this perspective, interviewees definitely have an advantage over those without an interview, but no advantage over those direct admits without even reeding an interview at all.
Other factors AO needs to consider: get rid of those deeply depressed or on the edge to burn out, so some top schools reject 60% top scorers. How? What Probability? Iâll explain later.
Iâll just note again I am not at all sure that is a perfectly accurate description of all or even most of the people who will get admitted without an interview. Of course if âdirect admitâ is just definitionally the same as âeventually admitted without interviewing,â OK. But my own sense is those people will still go through committee, and with the likely exception of recruited athletes, Yale may not know yet at the point of scheduling interviews which fraction of the non-interviewees it will end up admitting after committee.
And in fact, Yale seems to be telling alums that if you control for other aspects of their application, the statistical frequency is about the same. That doesnât really tell us much about the uncontrolled frequency, but it does suggest Yale still sees this as a probabilistic situation at the point it is deciding whether or not to interview specific applicants.
So many reasonings here for the SCEA round:
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2/3 direct rejection;
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The remaining 1/3: 1/3 got admitted and 2/3 deferred, either needing more info such as the first half-year of senior transcript or award proof or the other significant updates.
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Previous post mentions that 400~450 direct admits, the remaining in fact less than 400, so ~1/3 drops down to ~1/6.
In terms of yield, among these 400~450 admits, their yield would be much higher, compensating the remaining yield (must be very low). Based on educated guess.
Again, I am not sure how you are using all those terms.
If direct rejection means rejected without being deferred first, OK.
Deferred applicants, though, might not be in the category of Yale needing more information about them. They might also be in the category of Yale wanting to see how its applicant pool and yield model is evolving during RD before deciding on those deferred applicants.
And finally, I am not sure now what you mean by direct admits. If that means people admitted SCEA without being deferred first, last year that was 776 people. If that means people who were admitted SCEA without being interviewed firstâto my knowledge we do not know what that number actually is.
For applicants/students here, my suggestion is donât spend too much time here, kind of not worth it.
For top 3 in a US high school, 1/3 direct rejection by top 20, for whatever reasons such as not best-polished essays, deeply depressed or on the edge for burnout by large-data-picture-profiling, crippled in one or two or three of major aspects such as ECs or Competitions or Leadership or Recommendations not saying positive feedbackâŠ
For the remaining 2/3: ~1/3 end up with top 10, the remaining ~2/3 end up with top 11~20. But you need to be absolutely top 3, which might not on surface rank by your own high school, because your own high school wonât count some competition awards or self-learned AP or college-level courses except for dual enrollment or Scholarships like Gates Scholarship or the like. This explains why so many valedictorians failed their top 10 application process because those valedictorians are not strong enough as apposed to those hidden top 3 by Yaleâs AO admissions standards. Basically those valedictoriansâ top 10 opportunities have been intercepted by your classmates who de fact are far superior in many aspects, but not by your high school standards.
The above is only statistically correct, so applicants/students need to use statistics to get yourself in a top 10 by applying all top 10 or even top 25 colleges. Please please please donât attach to one college too much: the more attached youâre the more stressful youâll become. Based on MITâs senior director, one applicant on average applies for 25 colleges. So, go spend time applying for enough top colleges to secure your future. The more schools you apply, the more polished your life stories/essays will become and therefore the larger probability youâll end up with your dream school.
Parents, you can spend as much time as you want to discuss here, of course.
Why do I keep mentioning depression or burnout is because the depression rate among top 3 in all U.S high schools are unacceptably higher, between 30% to 40% or even higher. AO must try their utmost to get rid of those deeply depressed.
I agree with your message that kids should not get too fixated on one highly selective college, or a narrowly-defined group like Ivies, HYPSM, T10, WASP, or so on.
That said, one really cannot generalize across different secondary schools, it is too variable. Some secondary schools only get someone admitted to colleges like that every few years, if even that. But some regularly send way more than 3 per year.
Ultimately the true best source of guidance is a very experienced high school counselor who understands their historic patterns of acceptances very well and can steer kids to strategies that make sense for them in light of their interests and attributes.
Unfortunately, a lot of kids do not have that resource available to them, and then I think sometimes the collective efforts of us amateurs can at least help try to fill that gap.
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In a word, as a top 3, you might only have a 4% chance to get in Yale, but you will have 1/3 probability to land in a top 10, and 2/3 probability to end up with a top 20. Go polish you life-stories/essays as many times as possible finishing applying for top 25 as MITâs senior admissions director said.
This is the biggest picture for everyone here!
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Exactly, like Bay Area and Northeast Private Schools have EXTREMELY different admit rates to certain T20s than, say most schools in other states with no real relationship with colleges or resources for their students. My school sends a student to Harvard every 4 years, while my friendâs school sends about 8+ each year. Harvard is about the only Ivy my school sends to, and even then, rarely despite the caliber of the students, yet with other T10s who are not Ivy, our acceptance rate is much higher, with about 5+ each year.
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So, applying for T5 like Yale is a gamble, 100% life gambling because you donât know youâre qualified or not. So, you need to jump high by touching the sky, fathoming how high your own dream school would be.
So many factors AO needs to consider:
Feed schools like Stuyvesant High School, ~20 Harvard Admits a year.
Asian Cap: Princeton 25%, MIT 40%, Duke 35%, most others 30%.
Boys lag behind girls for one to two years in terms of maturity, so Duke has 55% girls and 45% boys.
Fewer students would like take Engineering track over time but more engineering schools emerge.
Just list a few here!
We seem to be getting off track from a discussion of Yale Early Admissions specifically. Perhaps you would like to start a new topic to invite discussion of your perspectives on these more general issues.
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Please keep posts on topic to Yale EA discussions. Off topic posts will be edited or deleted.
Feel free to create another thread for discussions of admissions in general.
It does not matter. I donât know how other colleges work, but for Yale, you can submit it anytime and it will not affect your admissions or financial aid decision. Donât be stressed!
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Iâll again suggest that while a discussion of the role that donor models might play in private college admissions, including in terms of justifying or indeed shaping legacy policies, could be interesting, that is not really about Yaleâs early action admissions specifically in any notable way.
There have been a lot of discussions about interviews. Whatâs the verdict? Getting an interview means you are past the first round of screening? On the other hand no interview meaning we donât have a chance ? Would love some clarity on this if thereâs such a thing.
I believe , if the panel is convinced enough with your application, you may get selected without an interview. Getting an interview means that the panel is still not convinced and want to give another chance in the interview to get more information. The last set could be the panel clearly defines a candidate as rejected and do not require an interview to get any more information. I feel , considering the number of applicants interviewed, there will be more applicants rejected out of this process than accepted. So, getting an interview may be one step closer to rejection and with some possibility of acceptance. This is my inference by looking at various forums. I could be wrong in my understanding.
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This exists, but not too many applicants are âauto-admittedâ. One scenario I could imagine is a super strong candidate who lives in an area where interviews are not available. Donât forget interview is also an opportunity for alumni to connect with applicants and âsellâ Yale. If availability permits, I feel most applicants who receive an interview are those Yale is interested in admitting (this doesnât apply to the âcurtesy interviewsâ given to legacy students and/or feeder schools simply because of their hooks if this curtesy thing exists).
I heard last year some students received their interviews really late and were admitted. So if you havenât received one, be patient, maybe you gonna receive it soon.