<p>It seems to me that out of chaos comes order in the SCEA admissions. I’ve noticed a few trends from those who were admitted vs. deferred/rejected in the recent threads:</p>
<p>1) Those admitted had leadership positions focused around what they were interested in/not a huge range.
2) Those admitted also had some substantial community service which usually involved going to a third world or second world country and helping out with some task there (also referring to someone in my school who was admitted recently).
3) Or if an applicant had low income, was from a rural region, or was URM and did not have these qualifications but did do some small things, then they were admitted.</p>
<p>It seems as though Yale admissions does not really put too much emphasis in the EA round on awards, but the admissions office does seem to like big community service ventures over research or just regular ECs (not sure about RD). I am planning on doing research over the summer, and I do not have many major awards (possibly NMS commended (I didn’t prepare), National Latin Exam Gold Medalist 2 times (3 to be), and definitely AP Scholar this year), but I do have some rather interesting extra curriculars that do not quite pertain to community service. To me many times those who do community service just do it for the college application, which is why I would rather do things I like. Is it true that they are more inclined to accept big community service goers over those who are more into research or non-community service activities?</p>
<p>I sure hope so, because I volunteer a lot with my church group but have no research :P. Can 550 hours be considered a lot, or is that the norm for Yale applicants? :P</p>
<p>How do you become a National Latin Exam Gold Medalist. I have heard of this award, but when did you personally start Latin? My high school only offers an online class and I already have too many credits to be able to take it. I want to take a prestigious Latin course over the summer, but it would be mighty expensive of course and I doubt I would qualify for financial aid. Did you start Latin you freshman year? How about anyone else?</p>
<p>My high school requires students to take Latin (or Greek) as sophomores and juniors, and this year an AP Latin class (Vergil’s Aneid) was introduced for seniors. It was mandatory for us to take the National Latin (or Greek) Exam in March of each year (Levels I and II, respectively.)</p>
<p>By the way, I have to say that this post made me feel a lot better lol…I seem to make the service/leadership requirements (although I never volunteered in a third world country… o_O) I don’t have any research either, but then again I made it clear that my interests lie in the humanities and not in the sciences.</p>
<p>Yea, there are really no trends. Looking at 10, 20, even 30 people isn’t enough to tell what Yale is going to do. Doing groundbreaking research or winning an exclusive writing award, for example, will most likely trump Community Service (sad, perhaps). In addition, each year is different. Right now Yale seems to be spending a lot on the science/eng departments, thus perhaps this year it will be about big science awards/research. Still, no matter what it looks like, it is impossible to predict based on past trends. On that sad note, good luck to all!</p>
<p>How do colleges even check to make sure someone is URM (besides the female one, that usually is pretty obvious to tell)? Anyways, that is a little tangent but back to topic…</p>
<p>I started taking Latin as a freshman at my school, and our teacher signs up the people who want to take the exam with NLE.org. Sadly, my school is cutting the Latin program, so I’ll probably self studying Latin Lit AP.</p>
<p>I am not sure how recent the early action thread is that I found (I think it is in the Yale 2012 subforum), but if you look a lot of the accepted people had one or two focused leadership positions and many also had a lot of meaningful community service. The people who had multiple leadership positions that were scattered around seemed to be deferred to RD. If you look at the thread, you will see somewhat of that trend, and when you say “well this person seemed to have normal ECs, test scores, et al,” check to see if they are URM. URMs seem to have an easier time getting accepted in EA with less community service and awards so long as they demonstrated some leadership. And yes, I agree that 20-30 people do not necessarily make up the vast majority of people applying to Yale EA, but that does not mean a trend does not emerge if you look at the data.</p>
<p>I am planning on doing research over the summer, but I do not think the admissions office would look down upon that, so long as I followed through with the research and did something with it (used it to find an internship, enter a competition, etc.); however, I am worried that my community service is not strong enough compared to the applicants who were accepted for the 2012 round of EA. Nevertheless, I am sure that Yale is not looking for the same type of applicants every year, so this might have just been what they wanted to see in EA for their class of 2012: strong community service and focused leadership/activities; this might change for this year’s EA or the year after that. Maybe they will look for some other trait in applicants for EA.</p>
<p>What I think would be interesting is if we wait to see who was admitted/deferred/rejected in EA for 2013 and compare it to last years results to see if the trend matches or is different.</p>
<p>the threads of CC arent at all a good foundation to discern statistical trends about the EA applicant pool/accepted pool.
Aside from your normal issues, like voluntary response, honesty, etc…</p>
<p>No focus on the essays and letters. The single most important part for CC applicants who anyways look godly on paper.</p>
<p>All of the high schools in my county put race on every student’s transcript. Plus, URMs often write about being URMs in their essays (I did and I know several others have done it as well). Plus, how many people have the moral gall to actually lie about their race?</p>
<p>These are just the musings of a Canadian student~</p>
<p>There are numerous external scholarships in Canada that are worth over 60k if a student decides to stay in Canada. Throughout my high school time I figured that I stood a decent shot at some of those scholarships, until this year when I started filling out the applications. Every one is basically centered on community service and arbitrary notions of leadership. You could very well be the best debater in the country, be a choir director or anything exemplary in your chosen field and you wouldn’t necessarily have a decent shot. I find that the general questions is “How has your community benefited from your actions?” which is a fine question, it just doesn’t encompass many exceptional students who don’t feel that community service or “leadership” in a narrow scope is for them.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of the Common App, but that’s mostly because of the stress induced >_>. What I like about American admissions, and something that reinforces my desire to go to the states is the emphasis, on the individual. It doesn’t matter what you do, but how involved you are and how much you learn as a result. Essay prompts almost always center on something which has impacted YOU and in holistic admissions there’s more of a consideration for the various things that have contributed to your identity and personality. I think it allows for a more diverse and unique set of students.</p>