Yale, Class of 2009

Compbase2835
Tue, 10 May 2005 19:24:00 +0000

I talked to my admissions officer a few days after April 1st, and it seemed as if the one major evidence to her that I should be admitted was this:

Letters of Recommendation

Obviously, the letters have to say a lot about you, through many details. If you have a single uninteresting letter, your chances decrease dramatically. What she said was that she saw me as a true “Yalie” - which is what they are seeking to admit (For God, For Country, and…for Yale) because the faculty was in strong support of my application thanks to the impact I’ve had through various activities and classroom projects at school. Apparently, my extracurricular activities and accomplishments were shown through these letters to be very impacting, and this became a primary reason that they did not turn me down. They want people who will become heavily involved in both academic and extracurricular life at Yale. If you can connect your positions to your passions and then to the people who will be writing your letters - with evidence that you have impacted them and made a difference through initiative, creativity, etc., then your chances will definitely increase. You should note that, to my knowledge, this isn’t the same criteria used at Princeton and Harvard, because the Ivy League with most emphasis on people-leadership is Yale. Good luck!