Chance me for Yale?

Hunt
Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:21:09 +0000

Another way of putting this is that Yale (and schools like it) are able to fill their classes with people who have excellent GPA, excellent scores, AND excellent ECs. If you’re only pretty good in one (or more) of these categories, you aren’t going to have a strong chance of admission unless you have something else to counterbalance that. This could be a hook–you might be a legacy, or an underrepresented minority (URM), or a recruitable athlete–or it might be some really impressive achievement, like winning a major prize, starting your own successful business, etc.

Looking at the OP’s information, we see a GPA that is good, but not excellent. ECs are strong, but is there one that shows extraordinary achievement by OP as an individual? It’s not clear–are you a good enough skier to be recruited at a college that has a ski team (I don’t know what Yale has in this regard)? Eagle Scout is an excellent EC, but there are many Eagle Scouts. Is there another hook? Do you come from, say, Idaho?