I have unusual circumstances (prolonged illness = switching schools, repeating a grade, odd senior year course load) that my guidance counselor recommended that I attach an Additional Info. page.
So I wrote a letter to "Dear Yale College Undergraduate Admissions", 657 word count, three pages.
Problem is I'm also attaching my resume which is 2 1/2 pages long.
Should I shorten the letter? Is a 6-page attachment unacceptable?
Or is it fine, because I needed the room to explain my circumstances?
Yale emphasizes brevity. Cut as much as you can from the resume and letter. With that being said, does extenuating circumstances mean your grades are bad?
Thank you! I am so grateful to hear some responses.
@ does extenuating circumstances mean your grades are bad?
No, it just explains why I have permanent incompletes for courses such as AP Vergil (hospitalized for last half of year) and why my senior courses are limited to just three (my graduation requirements, counselor won't let me stay in AP Euro, so I audit it unofficially instead).
Brevity... my letter is conversational, should I change it to bullet points?
Ex. I start w/ "I'm grateful for the opportunity to explain personally explain five inconsistencies in my academic record, such as..."
Would anyone be willing to take a look at my Additional Information pages? I'd love a candid
"This entire portion is excessive and unnecessary" critique. Thank you in advance.
Yikes. Well I'm at 5 pages now, still trying to hack off some more words off the letter.
I'd Reaaaaaaaaaaaaaallly appreciate anyone who would be willing to take a look as it, especially from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't personally know me.
Just get rid of the resume. You don't need it. If you can't fit all your extracurriculars onto the extracurricular space on the common app, then just write "Additional Extracurriculars" and put those in. I highly doubt you need to explain every single extracurricular and write about all you did. Most will probably speak for themselves.
But then again, you've planned to do this for the entire time, and I don't know if you should just radically change your application 7 hours before the deadline. Tough to say. Are you relisting things already on your common app in your resume though? It's just unnecessary.
send it to me, if you still have time, also, if you are sedning paper forms for the counselor, you can put your resume there, that's what I did, also, 637 words should not be 3 pages, make 12 point Times new roman and it should be 1&1/2, MAX...
Eh I would argue that a resume is sometimes needed, like when you have an activity that has a ridiculous amount of stuff about it.
I guess when you say 637 words, its in outline format, which inflates the whole thing?
You can always try dropping the font size by 1 as a last ditch effort (I did that for my 1-and-a-bit page one, to keep it on one page for some apps). Shorter is better though, but if its all concise, they'll appreciate your brevity regardless of the 5 pages (4 would be easily reasonable for an explanation and a resume I guess?).
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