Chances for EA to Yale?

AP930
Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:24:14 +0000

I will be EAing to Yale in the fall of 2009. I ask that you critique my application and note its strengths and weaknesses, especially its weaknesses, and offer suggestions on how to make myself more appealing as a candidate for Yale. Thanks!
• SAT I: 2320 CR: 800 M: 790 W: 730
I’m going to retake just to improve the writing.
• SAT II: Chemistry: 790 Math II: 790 U.S. History: 750
• GPA: UW: 4.0 W: 4.39
• Rank: 1 of 400ish
• AP (place score in parenthesis): Chemistry (5), U.S. History (4 or 5)
Scores aren’t out yet so I can only speculate.
• Senior Year Course Load: AP English Lit, AP Bio, AP Calc BC, AP Psychology, AP U.S. Government, Introduction to Hebrew Scriptures, Honors Spanish IV, Economics

In addition to those, I am taking AP Chinese outside school (self-study) and physics from a university during the school year since my school does not offer AP Physics. The reason for my few junior year APs is that my school doesn’t offer that many for juniors–albeit I am taking more APs than my peers. How bad will that hurt me as an applicant?

I have no major awards unless you consider PSAT Commended which I might omit since it won’t help me that much.

Minor awards include:
Tennessee Math Teachers’ Assessment (state math exam): Placed 8th in freshman year for geometry, second in the Rhodes University testing center for Pre-calculus (11th), and 9th in the region for Pre-calculus exam.
Top scorer in the American Chemical Society Competitive Examination (Top 20, they don’t give exact rank unless you’re in the top 3).

Knowledge Bowl team was the semifinalist in sophomore year in a competitive knowledge bowl tournament aired on the local news channel and in the Top 8 in junior year. Also we placed 2, 3, and 4 in several local school competitions. Should I omit these competition names in my application?

2nd place in school chess tournament (omit?)
• Extracurriculars:

National Honor Society (President), Knowledge Bowl (Captain), Piano for 11 years (sadly never tried any contests, but I am the church pianist for junior and senior year), Bridge Builders (a leadership program that involves bridging culture and economic differences), Volunteer for Special Olympics Bowling, Youth Leadership program graduate, lots of church activities (pianist, founder of an accountability group program, regular volunteering, etc).

In addition to these, I plan to co-found and co-lead a club that will distribute food to either the local food bank or the hope house.

I plan to omit things like Beta club and etc. I hope to craft an extracurricular list that seems to show things I’m passionate about— music, faith activities, and volunteering—while not sounding like a disorganized laundry list that muddles my interests.

• Job/Work Experience: Pianist for church (spend about four hours ever week, excluding the several hours I practice)
• Volunteer/Community service: Library (100+ hours), Prepare and serve food for a poor area every city with my church, Special Olympics Bowling
• Summer Activities: Governor School (sciences), Bridge Builder activities, NHS volunteering
• Essays: Still thinking. Will the admissions office frown upon my essay if I incorporate themes such as faith into my essay?
• State: TN
• School Type: large public
• Ethnicity: Chinese -_-
• Gender: male

Other schools I will apply to: Dartmouth, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Duke, UT Knoxville, Rice,
and University of Virginia.

Right now it seems that my top three choices would be Cornell, Yale, and Princeton.

I think my weaknesses are relatively weak extracurriculars (or at least without national/state rankings), no major awards, and being Chinese. Strengths? Decent leadership maybe? I need to stand out somehow.

Thank you for taking the time in critiquing this. Your comments are warmly welcomed.