Do I have a realistic chance at getting into Yale?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

Hi my name is Henry and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if I have a realistic chance at getting into Yale. It has always been my dream school and I would love to go there. I will be applying ED this upcoming fall. I am a white male and reside in Florida. I attend a public school whose total population is about 2200 (my class size is 550). I plan to apply to all of the Ivy League schools as well as MIT, CalTech, and Boston College. I plan to major in Astrophysics and/or Chemical Engineering. I come from a family of divorced parents. I have no contact with my father and my family income is lower tier. I also have a brother in college. Below I’ll list my credentials.

Academics:
Gpa: 3.92 UW/5.0W
SAT: 1390 (710 R&W // 680 M)
18/24 essay
(Planning on retaking, shooting for a 1450+)
Sat 2 Subject
Chem - 580
Math level 2 - 600
Class rank 2/550

Freshman Year
Geometry Honors - A
Team sports - A
English 1 Honors - A
Spanish 1 - A
Biology Honors - A
Intro to Technology- A
AP Human Geography - A (sem 1) B(Sem2)

Sophomore year

Spanish 2 Honors - A
World History Honors - A
Chemistry Honors - A
Ap Environmental Science - A
English 2 Honors - A
Accounting 1 Honors - A
Weight lifting - A
Algebra 2 Honors - A

Junior Year

Dual Enrollment Comp 1&2 (2 English credits) - A
Pre-Calculus Honors - A
Spanish 3 Honors
AP Us history - A
Financial Operations - A
AP Seminar - A
Aerobics - A
AP Chemistry - A

Senior year intended classes

AP Research
AP Physics
AP CPU science
AP Calculus
AP Macro/Micro economics
AP Government
Spanish 4 Honors
Research 1

Extracurriculars

Varsity Basketball (Captain) - 4 Years

Club Basketball (Captain) - 2 Years (State champions back to back years)

AP Student Council President and representative for the AP sciences - 2 years

Tutor - I tutor kids at my school in math and science classes (particularly higher level math and science) - 2 years

AP Student Mentor - Founded this club to help students succeed in AP. Mentor younger kids in high school to ensure their success. - 1 Year (my senior year will be the first year it’s in effect)

Academic team - Vice President - 1 Year

Community service - Over 100 hours volunteering at Church, Elementary schools, and with Habitat for humanity.

Research - I am conducting research relating to Physics in my AP research class. I will have a research paper and oral presentation by the end of senior year.

Submitted a poem to the poetry foundation - Awaiting possible publication.

Awards -

Scholar Athlete - Local Level

All area honorable mention - Varsity Basketball

I’ve also received 5 additional awards ranging from the local to state and national levels, however I can’t recall the names of them.

Other
I am a member of our schools AP capstone program. This is a program that is the equivalent of IB. I am on track to receiving this diploma.

I am certified across Microsoft office in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel.

American Legion Boys State program - 1 of 500 kids in the state of Florida to attend this elite camp.

I speak English fluently and Spanish semi-fluently.

Essay - Perosnal experience and how it shaped my outlook on life. (Im sorry I don’t feel comfortable enough to elaborate on the topic)

2

You sound like a serious student who has overcome some very difficult personal/family challenges. What is also striking about your post is the glaring disparity between your school grades and your standardized test scores. The latter are quite low and not in the normal range - 25th to 75th - percentile for Yale and the other highly competitive schools you are considering applying to. Also your SAT Math and SAT II Math score aren’t high enough to apply as either an “astrophysics and/or chemical engineering major.” If you have time to prep and re-take the SAT or to try the ACT instead, I’d advise you to do that. I would also advise you to broaden your college search to include not only reach but match and safety schools. Best of luck!

3

Aside from low SAT scores, does my application sound good enough for Yale? I do have safety schools in florda that I didn’t list. I do plan on scoring significantly higher on this coming SAT for math.

4

Note that Boston College does not have an engineering school.

5

No one has a realistic chance to get in Yale.

But the test scores are killer, you just can’t wrangle your way out of them.

I don’t know how you can apply to all of those and say your family income is “lower tier” unless you mean Questbridge.

I do have a recommendation for you though - if you can have a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, that would be helpful to get into top schools. Writing and presenting a research paper is worth diddly unless there is a major organization behind it or you publish.

6

I am using a combination of waivers and scholarships to help find application fees. And what do you mean by killer, in regards to test scores?

7

Why are you applying to all the Ivies? They are different schools with varying locations, weather, vibes, academic offerings, etc. Probably relatively few people would love their time at all eight.

I think to be a competitive unhooked applicant at HYP you need that SAT up at 1500+ and for the rest, 1450+.

For Caltech, probably more like 1550.

1390 is competitive for BC, but improving it certainly won’t hurt.

A few things:

  1. I think rather than throwing a blanket over the Ivies and applying to all of them, choose your reaches, matches and safeties based on fit variables like Academics, Environment/Location, Social Vibe, Dorms/Food, and Cost. Make sure you actually would fit well at, and can afford, every school to which you apply.
  1. BC is the least selective school you listed, but it is probably a match or high match for you. I suggest adding a few more match-range schools and at least one safety to your list.
  2. The Ivies and Caltech are high reaches for you right now. You can pull them down into standard Reachland if you seriously improve the SAT, but they will remain reaches in the RD round. That's a lot of reaches. Again, consider what you are looking for in a school and choose all your schools -- reach, match, safety -- that way.
8

Yale’s acceptance rate is under 7%. It is a long-shot for pretty much everyone. Yale and schools like it don’t have enough room to accept all of the exceedingly well qualified applicants who apply. Currently, your standardized tests (both SAT and SAT II) are well below the 25%th percentile for Yale (and likely other schools on your list) which will make your chances of acceptance even more remote.

You have much to offer colleges, but right now you need to come up with a more realistic list of colleges to apply to. Sure, it is fine to throw in a couple of reach applications – but you need to focus on finding match and safety schools that appear affordable and that you would be happy to attend.

9

Your grades and ECs are superb. I however see two problems here:

  • Your SAT scores, particularly on Math and on the SAT 2's. At least for the Math score I would strongly suggest that you do significant SAT preparation before retaking the SAT. A good tutor can give you a practice test or probably look at results from the test that you already took and might be able to quickly focus in on whatever the problem was (of course, the tutor's ability to do this will depend upon what the problem actually was, which I cannot guess).
  • The 8 Ivy League schools plus MIT and Caltech are a very wide range of different schools, with different strengths. If I were looking for very good schools for "Astrophysics and/or Chemical Engineering", and if I were to put together a top 10 list for these subjects, then I am sure that at least two or three schools from "Ivy League plus MIT plus Caltech" would show up in my list. In fact, I expect that MIT and Caltech would probably both show up on any top 10 engineering list. However, I would be very surprised if more than two or three Ivy League schools would show up on this list. I would even be slightly surprised if all 8 of them even had both of these majors (I haven't checked, have you?).

I think that you need to think hard about what schools are actually top level for Astrophysics and/or Chemical Engineering, if that is what you are planning to major in.

Do you have the possibility of being a recruited athlete?

Finally, as always you need to pay attention to financial issues. You need to find a strong affordable school with a good program in your intended majors. I suggest that you take a good look at your in-state options in addition to looking at famous highly ranked schools.

10

Try as I might, I can’t conjure up a person who would be happy at all eight. I can imagine someone who would be happy to be accepted at any of the eight.

11

The mere fact your parents are divorced doesn’t mean that Yale won’t expect your dad to pay for you to attend Yale. Many of the top colleges require a non-custodial parent to fill out financial info. Waivers happen, but they are rare and are done on a case by case basis by individual schools. So, be aware that, depending upon the circumstances, Yale may require your dad to contribute. If it does and he won’t, you won’t be able to go. So, you need some financial safeties and some FAFSA-only colleges.

Yale’s a reach for everyone. If you’re a recruited athlete, you may have a chance. However, it seems that all of your other ECs were only done for 1-2 years.

You really need to add some match and safety schools to your list–especially some FAFSA only schools.

12

You don’t need to publish. And you don’t have time, anyway.

But for these highly competitive colleges- and for STEM, no less- where are the math-science ECs? (Research for a class is not "extra"curricular.)

What do you really know about what those colleges look for?

13

Have you considered applying for an internship in astrophysics or chemical engineering, or whichever career field you’d be interested in? Colleges like Yale may look highly on career experiences, especially those that demonstrate initiative and a desire to apply yourself academically beyond the classroom. It may be late to apply, but you’d be surprised. Some organizations have student internship programs that occur in the fall or winter, to which you can apply in the summer. That may help your chances, especially if Yale asks you to expand on any summer experiences or “jobs.”

As another poster stated, pay close attention to the financial aid policy of Yale, and any other school you’re applying to, when it comes to divorced parents. Yale offers a non-custodial waiver form that can possibly waive your father’s obligation to pay for your education. You would need some sort of third party to certify that you have very little or no contact with your father, which would be a decent reason for submitting a waiver. There’s no guarantee that Yale will accept the waiver petition, and in many cases they reject them. Either way, I encourage you to dig deep on the financial side of applying to Yale. Simply “getting in” won’t help if you can’t afford to attend in the first place. I’m in a divorced situation as well.

Best of luck!

14

Realistically speaker 7% acceptance rate is misleading, after Yale admits athletes, legacy students, big donors, and others, average (which I mean students with top grades but little notoriety) acceptance is probably about 4% ?? Think of Yale as a lottery ticket, you buy but you don’t really expect to win:)