Do I have what it takes?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>Or am I a typical applicant?</p>

<p>I’m a junior at a competitive school in the middleeast. (does that make me an URM? idk just wondering…) I’m planning to apply to Yale a year from now…so any advice would be great! Tell me if you think I’m on the right track…</p>

<p>Rank: 15/120 (ya, I suck)
GPA: (avg of 4 yrs) 16/20 </p>

<p>Thats an A. I messed up freshman year and got a 14/B- so that got my average down a bit. Now I’m getting 17s (A+). Also, our school dosent weigh GPA so taking a rigorous courseload brings my grades down…colleges would take that into account.</p>

<p>SAT: 1850 June (I’m re-taking it in Dec. right now I’m getting 2000-2100 in practice tests. I’m aiming at 2200+)
SAT II: taking next year Maths IIC, Bio M and either world history or french</p>

<p>APs: Biology, European history, Macroeconomics, English language and composition
A-levels: English language and litreture, Economics, Buisness, Arabic, Maths.</p>

<p>I’m taking the 4 APs and 4 ASs and Arabic A2 this year. Next year, I’ll be taking 4A2s (the second module of the A-level) and a couple more APs. Thats a total of 6 APs and 5 A-levels by graduation.</p>

<p>ECs:
-Head of biomonthly 50page school newspaper (10hs/ wk)
-University support prefect (this probably wont count so much)
-I interned at a publishing office in the summer where I translated childrens books from Arabic to English. I liked it so much that I’m still doing it. The office is a long drive from home tho so with school and all I mostly work from home.

  • I volunteer every weekend at the local autism center. I just started a couple of months ago so I doubt by the time I apply I WONT be one of those people with 1000+ volunteer hours lol. But I guess it will still look good…right?
  • I organized a couple of events in school including an international culture day, a Talent show, a “Brain Scratch” contest and a couple more events for the elementary grades.</p>

<p>So what do you think?
I feel like I’m a bit behind…
what more can I do to get in?</p>

2

<p>try to go more in depth with your ec’s</p>

3

<p>Are you in a private school? it sounds like you’re preparing for your French Baccalaureat, with the type of grades you’re getting (out of 20) even though your course load doesn’t really sound like it.</p>

<p>I guess I would look at getting the SAT scores up. I would take what people say about ECs with a grain of salt because racking up ECs in your senior year looks a little strange, and because there’s no way you could really invest yourself in all of them, especially because you must be working harder to get your grades up this year; that’s what really counts, so keep it up. Having a ton of ECs can also be a sign of non-commitment. Stick with your ECs, they’re interesting and you seem to care about them and I think that’s all that matters.</p>

4

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<p>No, you will not be considered a URM for admissions purposes.</p>

5

<p>Eldie, I’m in a private school but NOT one that provides french bacculareate.
your advice about ECs is very supportive…I’ll get deeoer into my ECs throughout the next year =)
thanks for the replies!</p>