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Subject: important yale information
Thank you for choosing to remain on Yale’s wait list. I am sorry to tell you that a review of the status of our freshman class indicates that we will not be able to give further consideration to your application. I appreciate your patience in awaiting final word on your candidacy.
Thank you for your interest in Yale. I wish you the very best of luck in your undergraduate years.
Sincerely yours,
Jeremiah Quinlan
Fuck yale guys. no seriously, screw them and the crapshoot admission process that discriminates by race, provided resources, as well as inherent racial and socioeconomic bias in standardized testing. just move on because who gives a shit. even if you got this far, it means you’re smart. now go be smart and show the world. without yale. you’ll do great things anyways and never ever look back.
^ Wow. Nice mature answer that spews venom and insults students who were accepted at the same time. Hope Penn meets your exacting needs.
^T26E4 - This is my first post on CC, although I have lurked here for many years as my kids applied to colleges. I think the person going to Penn is bobjones12345, and (s)he has been very respectful 
Not sure where interest82 is headed, and I agree with your reply. Hope Penn works out great for bobjones12345.
@T26E4 How I am insulting accepted students? Everyone who was accepted or waitlisted is, at least in Yale’s eyes, qualified to be there. They were accepted, and that’s good for them. It doesn’t make waitlisted candidates any less special, and neither does rejection make those candidates less special. And if you are seriously asserting that the college admissions process is fair and just, and that external factors like race and socioeconomic status and geographic location do not play a significant, I don’t even know what to say. Obviously a kid with 1800 SATs and no ECs, is unlikely to get in, and that can be predicted quite strongly, but there is often no explanation why exceptional students are rejected to some and accepted to others. If something cannot be predicted, as is the case for most teens who do not use college consulting and are considered good candidates (good SAT scores, good ECs, good GPA, passion, etc) it is a crapshoot: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crapshoot, if you needed a reference point.
What most people on CC like to do, is point out flaws in people’s posts, or to basically spark responses for no reason. I obviously was not degrading Yale in any way, and saying “*** Yale” doesn’t mean I hate Yale or think less of it as an institution. To high school seniors, it is an expression of self-boosting morale, saying that we don’t need the decision made by a few adults behind closed doors of some office to decide what we can do with our lives. They don’t possess the right to crush dreams, or to crush ambition. This decision is hard for many, and instead of having people distressed by what happened, its better to move on and say “F it, I’m building my own path”. Cursing doesn’t need to be used to be disrespectful. That’s the larger controversy here. Every upstanding adult believes cursing is a form of disrespect and has no place in society. But it can be empowering, artistic, and visionary. I wasn’t holding a grudge against Yale. All I am saying is that I won’t let this decision define me, and no one else should either. The “F yale, guys”, wasn’t meant in a tone to lead a revolution against Yale out of anger, it was meant in a sense of futility and then empowerment.
And that’s what my post was meant to do–to all of the rejected wailtisters, who were sentenced to purgatory for the last two months, BE HAPPY. The wait is over. Fall in love with your school, you know why? THEY WANTED YOU. They admitted you off the bat. They saw your app, and saw your potential. Now, instead of having second thoughts in life “Maybe if Yale had admitted me”, believe this is the best path. You don’t need Yale on your path to success, and it’s time you made these colleges realize that. Be strong and resolute. From the bottom of my heart, good luck to you my fellow rejected, and congrats to those accepted (perhaps at a prior date), as always! I’m ready to show the world what I can do, and hey, if you got waitlisted to Yale, you should be too!
^interest82 - when you explain it the way you did in your last paragraph, it is so much better than what you posted in your original note! Especially the “Fall in love with your school, you know why? THEY WANTED YOU. They admitted you off the bat.” This is so much more positive I know firsthand the angst kids and parents go through during the application process, and also truly believe that “everyone has a place and there is a place for everyone to shine and be successful.” You do not need to go to a specific college to achieve the dreams you have. I know successful entrepreneurs from local state and community colleges and not-so-successful employees from ivy-league and top-10 colleges. Reading the accomplishments of all the students that posted here and on other CC sites, all of you are going to do great things in your future because you have the passion and the drive to succeed, no matter where you go!!
@interest82, I can understand wanting to vent when you get disappointing news, and a few curses don’t bother me (I spent a lot of time on and around a trading floor). But, it’s not really fair to rant about “the crapshoot admission process that discriminates by race, provided resources, as well as inherent racial and socioeconomic bias in standardized testing” when you were accepted to Brown, received 2310 on your SATs, and your family income is six digits.
I take your point that anyone waitlisted at Yale or other schools of this caliber is quite bright, and will do well with or without attending Yale. Blaming the admission process seems a bit rich though.
Good luck wherever you’re headed; Brown perhaps?
@IxnayBob So, yes I am privileged and I know I am. I come from a good situation and am very lucky to be in it. But my points aren’t just valid for me, they’re valid as a whole. This isn’t bitterness, it’s the facts. If you look at trends on the admittance of Asian American students with response to the growth in population, it has not been linear. Colleges do discriminate against Asians, and that’s no secret. The admission process is inherently flawed, and that’s not just my view but the view o many many posters on this site as well as expert analysts. Just because it is flawed, doesn’t mean it is not the most appropriate though. I believe in diversity, so I am fine with the process. But you can’t say it’s meritocratic. It’s not. I was accepted to brown because of my essay and because of the lottery. Not because I was better than all the kids they rejected. I applied to almost all the top 15 schools, and was accepted to a few. Why those and not others? No one will ever know. I thought my essay were pretty good for most of them, the apps were the same. It is simply too unpredictable and every step is flawed. Again, to reiterte I am not complaining. It’s fine the way it is, but it is indeed NOT 100% meritocracy. And this has nothing to do with Yale either. This I almost all top colleges, save perhaps Caltech.
No one claims it’s a meritocracy. That’s for the majority of US colleges but not for the “top 15”. At 85% of US colleges, you turn in a transcript with a 3.9GPA and a +2000 SAT and they’re showing you to the side room for the honors scholarship presentation and handing you college swag, hoping you’ll attend. That’s the fact.
But if you’re shooting for the top schools, you know that their institutional needs outweigh any outsider’s desires.
If I may, one solution to “close the academic meritocracy gap” for top schools – decide to eliminate all sports. It’ll never happen. But if HYP et al, eliminated all athletic teams, you’d immediately free up slots for a wide variety of academic pursuits. Chinese and Indian footballers and hoopsters and volleyballers and lax players exist. Not many though. Not many who get recruited. One of the largest non-Asian blocks is that – I believe at harvard, 30% of incoming freshmen are athletic recruits. Each wants an international component to be around 10%. Lessen that number and you free up more slots too.
But it ain’t gonna happen. And I stand by my chiding of your post. Subsequently, you make viable statements and arguments. But the screw the college rant closes my ears to your actual well-formed observations and wishes for rejected students to not needlessly bash themselves.
@T26E4, I have zero hope of it ever happening, but I wish that all schools would put sports into what I consider their rightful place. The distortions caused by high-stakes sports are well known, but nobody has the courage to say “enough already.” At least it appears that the more selective schools only accept students who can handle the academics, whether or not they’d have been accepted if they weren’t great at their sport.
T26E4, You make some good points, but just to comment on percent of athletic recruits - I don’t believe it’s anywhere near 30% at Harvard, Yale or any of the Ivies. As of the time of this article in the Yale Daily News, it was around 12-13% at both Yale and Harvard.
There are people of Asian background on varsity sports rosters at these schools, but you’re right that that’s more true of some sports than others . . . e.g. Yale women’s golf is predominantly Asian but there are only a few on the Yale football roster.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/10/18/future-of-athletic-recruitment-remains-uncertain/
@IxnayBob The question isn’t whether the athletic recruits can handle the academics, though. I remember reading a statement by the Dean of Admissions at some top university (perhaps Harvard) that said about 80% of applicants are well equipped to handle Harvard academics. The questions here are of one, whether the athletic recruits are deserving of those few coveted spots, which may better be filled by “more deserving” students. Because let us be honest, the academic threshold for athletic recruits is considerably lower than those of non-athletic admits.
@interest82, you won’t get an argument from me. I just was pointing out that at Yale, for example, someone might be accepted because in addition to being able to handle the academics, he weighs twice the average freshman weight and is quick off the snap. At football powerhouses, they want someone even bigger and faster, and will accept him even if he can only read at the 5th grade level.
New to this forum. I would like to chime in. I agree with interest82. What all of you should keep in mind is that " most children of priviledge" are so because their parents “busted their behinds” ! We have worked hard to give our children their opportunities. And yes, society today takes these opportunities away from our children because of our hard work !
Rather a pathetic commentary on society, isn’t it ? Quotas…Bah Humbug !
@NEConcernedPop , first, welcome to the forum. By disagreeing with you, I don’t want you to feel unwelcome. I think that the distance between the haves and have-nots is increasing (not an original thought!), and the schools play a part in this. In my family, my father immigrated as a 50-year old non-English speaker when I was 7; he worked hard and put me through school; I worked hard, did well, and will put my son through a better school. My son was given opportunities based on his family’s hard work; I believe that he deserved them, but someone could honestly believe that he didn’t as much as someone else did.
The only quota I’m sure exists is that there are x available spots each year at selective schools.
@interest82 I think it depends on what “more deserving” means. The Ivy League rules on athletic recruiting are pretty strict with regard to academic standards for athletes and each school has to track Academic Index scores for athletes relative to the class as a whole.
It’s also interesting that athletes at selective universities are actually a lot more successful in their post-college careers than others at their schools, if you take earnings as a metric anyway . . . see link for information on a study on this by William Bowen, ex-president of Princeton. At Yale for example, two of the school’s largest donors, Charles Johnson and Joel Smilow, were both athletes in their days at Yale.
A solution could be limiting the number of apps a single person makes. In the UK we can only apply to 5 uni total, and we have to choose between Oxford OR Cambridge.
@elaras Technically, we do have a limit, as by the Common App (20), although that is very high anyways, not even counting the schools you can apply to that aren’t on the Common App. But, good point!
I like the UK application process a lot more than the US one actually. I know that one is MUCH MUCH more meritocratic. I am quite jealous. Worst part is that I’m an Indian who has a British citizenship (and ironically not Indian), but is a permanent resident of the United States. Being that there is palpable discrimination against Asians in the US admission process, and that I am not eligible to apply to British schools as a domestic applicant, and that permanent resident status and non-citizenship in the US does have disadvantages such as being unable to apply for certain government resource, like an internship at NASA, makes it a lose-lose-lose situation for me.
interest82 – like has been said before, the VAST majority of US colleges are extremely meritocratic – you just happen to wish to aim for some that aren’t (and happen to populate the so-called “top 25” schools). I’ve postulated that the exact process you find distasteful is a large portion of what makes these schools so highly sought after.
Indeed, wouldn’t it even be in those school’s best interest to maintain their non-meritocratic methods if it’s one of the factors maintaining what society deems as their excellence?
If the sole idea of “meritocracy” holds penultimate weight for you, then plenty of fine schools which practice it extremely transparently are available for you. But that’s the rub, isn’t it? They tend not to be in that “top 25” list of schools.
I see competing exigencies here…