Strengths and Weaknesses for Yale?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
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<p>I am a girl going into my junior year in high school. I’d really like to go to Yale. What should I do to better my application?</p>

<p>UW GPA: 3.93
Rank: 9 out of 380
(I probably would be higher, but my freshman year was a little shaky. But since I’m doing better, I’ll probably rise)
I haven’t taken the SAT yet, but my last practice test score was a 2240. </p>

<p>I took AP World History and got a 3, unfortunately. </p>

<p>Throughout high school, I plan to take AP: Calculus, US History, French, Biology or Chemistry, English 3, English 4, Government, Economics, Psychology, and Music Theory.</p>

<p>I take Honors/Pre-AP classes whenever available.</p>

<p>EC’s:
President of French Club
French National Honor Society
National Honor Society
Student Council
Panther Pals - A program where upperclassmen go to underclassmen dens and take a “leadership” role there
Varsity Tennis
Played piano for eleven years (But only taken lessons for eight of those)
Taken drum lessons for three years
Have a part-time job at my church as a child-care worker
Plan to get a summer job next summer
Shadowed a doctor (20 hours)
HOSA
Academic Team</p>

<p>Volunteer Work:
World Changers - A camp where we fix houses for those in need.
Vacation Bible School
Acteens - A mission group at my church
Kidstown - A program for kids, in my church (for part of freshman year)
<em>I’ll try to get more. I"m going to try and volunteer at a hospital.</em></p>

<p>Awards: (I don’t have many)
Tennis Freshman Girls Singles District Champ (I might have been JV last year, but I tore my ACL)
I have had perfect attendance nine years of my life (Probably irrelevant).
I was also nominated for the Chemistry Pre-AP Award, but I didn’t win.
I’m in the G&T program.
<em>I’m going to try for NMS (I’m pretty sure I made NAF, though)</em>
<em>I compete in French Symposium every year, and hope to win an award this year. I also may win an award in Academic Team.</em></p>

<p>I don’t know how much of a difference this makes a difference but I am a black female. I was born in England and moved here when I was about five. </p>

<p>P.S. Could you tell me what you think of my chances for other Ivies as well?</p>

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<p>Your chances are good.</p>

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<p>Thanks for answering, but could you expand a little? What are some things I could work on?</p>

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<p>I am thinking, you want to get to yale medical school ?? anyways, your scores and EC’s are good, but you should try to change ‘participated’/‘nominated’/‘try’ to ‘won’ or ‘did’. I think that is what makes a real difference at these top tier schools.
Well I’m applying this year, so I will find out about my deductions soon !</p>

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<p>Just keep doin what you’re doing.</p>

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<p>my88: I’m sure Philovist means you all the best but he/she is only a HS student. To blithely say your “chances are good” when Yale is expected to accept near 7% just flies in the face of logic. Even the top most applicants must know that the overall chances are not good at all.</p>

<p>That being said, you look to be in line with a very successful college career. Whether it be Yale or elsewhere, best of luck to you.</p>

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<p>I think T26E4 is wrong to suggest that your chances are not good at all just because Yale’s acceptance rate is 7%.</p>

<p>Your chances of getting in are much higher than 7%, especially if you apply early. They are probably around 40%. Maybe higher. Maybe lower. In that range.</p>

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<p>Your chances are good. Take the SAT early enough so you can retake if needed in junior year. Make sure you apply early decision.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>“Your chances of getting in are much higher than 7%”</p>

<p>Based on what?</p>

<p>Philo: We’ll have to agree to disagree. When you say this young lady’s chances are 40%, you’re stating to her that statistically, she’s almost six times more likely than other applicants. I don’t know of anyone outside of a recruited athlete that is so desired by Yale.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1304717-official-yale-class-2016-rd-results-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1304717-official-yale-class-2016-rd-results-thread.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1253634-official-yale-class-2016-scea-results-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1253634-official-yale-class-2016-scea-results-thread.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Here are peoples’ yes/no summaries. Look at some of the rejected students. Also there is no advantage to SCEA applicants over RD applicants at Yale.</p>

<p>But to be frank, I disagree with anyone citing a “percentage”. I would say that even a Yale admissions officer wouldn’t go do such a thing.</p>

<p>Good is relative. I would agree 40% is good. I just doubt there are many people extant who have a “good” chance whatsoever.</p>

<p>To my88: best of luck to you. You’ve already gotten some great achievements. Keep up the great work!</p>

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<p>Well, yes. Do you see her stats? And her URM status (which indeed does matter)? Show me how many black female SCEAers applied to Yale with stats like those who got rejected. I’d predict that it’s much less than 90%.</p>

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<p>Sure, but we aren’t admissions officers. We are chancers.</p>

<p>There are sites that do this based off of hard data. Parchment.com, for example, gives rough (and probably optimistic, considering how it collects data) percentage chances based on a person’s stats and the stats and admission success of comparably qualified applicants in past rounds. My percentage guess is a rough estimate based from my experience from this site. </p>

<p>I actually think Parchment (which offers the most less crappy of crappy ways of chancing available that I’ve found) would predict her chances to be around 50% (meaning that 1 in 2 people last year with stats like hers got accepted). But I’m unwilling to go that far.</p>

<p>You might disagree with my method, and I won’t pretend that I hve any of this down to a science or anything. My guess is as good as anyone’s. However, it’s still my guess.</p>

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<p>Philovitist, what stats do you see that you feel are that outstanding as I am not seeing them?</p>

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<p>OP is a URM. Even without that, her stats seem quite good and suggest that she will get into many fine colleges. Whether Yale will be one of them is hard to say. But as a URM, her chances at excellent results are even better.</p>

<p>OP asked at the beginning of her post what she should do differently. Until I read the end of her post, I was going to say, “Try to do some things that aren’t so stereotypically Asian.”</p>

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<p>To be frank, it’s the URM status that gives her a good shot. </p>

<p>I might have glossed over the ECs too quickly. Quite a bit of it seems fillery…</p>

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<p>Also, I did get these awards: Duke TIP State Recognized, French Symposium Poetry Semi-Finalist. I don’t know how good they are, but I remembered them, so I thought that I’d mention them.</p>

<p>Also, would be Tennis Team Captain and Math Team Captain look good as well?</p>

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<p>T26E4 is a Yale alum who’s been active in interviewing and recruitment for Yale. T26E4 knows the score here.</p>

<p>OP, you’re well positioned to have a great experience at some leading university or college. But Yale is an exceedingly tough nut to crack, even for students who are #1 in their class and have SATs 100 points higher. Anybody who says otherwise is blowing smoke.</p>

<p>Could it happen for you? Absolutely! Should you (or anyone) bank on it? Definitely not.</p>

<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>

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<p>I’d play up the Black female angle. Although I get the impression that your socioeconomic status might not a lot of diversity to colleges (e.g. you seem fairly well off), the Black female angle will give you a boost. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, your ECs seem rather a dime-a-dozen, although I’m sure that you spent a lot of time with them and worked hard on them. The most intriguing ones to me are some of your more unique volunteer work (World Changers - A camp where we fix houses for those in need); so I would delve deeper and at a higher level on some of those and let some of the other ECs go.</p>

<p>Of course Tennis team captain and Math team captain look just fine. But you have to realize that THOUSANDS of tennis team captains and math team captains are applying (also regional/state athletes and mathaletes) . Thus, the volunteer work is what sets you apart (or find something else which sets you apart).</p>

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<p>Thanks for answering. I know my EC’s aren’t that great. I was thinking of ttrying to start something up, like a tutoring program for elementary school kids because I really enjoy being around little kids, but I wasn’t sure how to exactly go about it. I was going to talk to my NHS teacher, but I don’t know if it’ll be worth it (if people’ll join, if it’ll work). And plus, it’s not super extraordinary. But I don’t want that to be my main reason for starting it.</p>

<p>Also, do you think if I had some really good essays, that could add life to my application behind some stale EC’s? I just don’t want to ruin my chances because I didn’t do super cool things, like winning INTEL competitions, to ruin my chances. </p>

<p>Yale is my dream school. What would you do in my position to spice up your chances? Like should I just make means of what I have done, or try to add something new to my application?</p>

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<p>If your essays are wonderful, your chances will soar up.</p>

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<p>Starting something that meets a genuine need, and that grows so that it meets that need for more and more people over time, looks good. Starting something for the sake of starting something looks like…well, like starting something for the sake of starting something.</p>

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<p>Absolutely.</p>

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<p>I get that. Remember, every year there are more Yale freshmen than there are INTEL winners. Not everybody at Yale did something “super cool.” The trouble is, nobody knows a way to ensure that you’ll be among the small fraction of non-INTEL-winners who’ll ultimately be admitted to Yale. (Or Stanford or Williams or…)</p>

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<p>I really would like to start it, I’m just nervous. I’ve never been the popular kid, so I’m afraid that nobody would join because I’m not super personable. I just hate putting myself out there like that, just because I know that feeling of rejection by the masses and I don’t want that. At least when you get rejected from a college, it’s just you (and your family), who finds out.</p>

<p>I know there’s no sure-fire way to get in. That’s why I just wanat to know what you consider my strengths and weaknesses and what you think I should do about them. As I said earlier, should I just make means of what I have done, or try to add something new to my application? </p>

<p>Also, for my essays, should I talk about struggles? I’m afraid since I haven’t undergone cancer, homelessness, etc., any struggle I talk about will just sound like a whiny teenager.</p>