Good luck.
Hey, Iâve seen some discussion of LOCIs here and I wanted to relay an interesting conversation I had with Mark Dunn when he visited my school. I asked about sending a LOCI in case of deferral and he basically said that LOCIâs without updates are completely useless and lowkey annoy the office (said with eye roll). I asked him what he considered to be âsignificantâ and he said anything that you would have used an EC or award spot on when initially applying or a significant contextual change that would have gone in adtl info. Hope this helps!
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I think you are right about the ACT score. While 34 is a strong score a 35 or 36 could have tipped the scales and this is where the test optional movement is creating a mindset that scores do not matter. Yes, they are not the only thing that matter but they sure do matter. Good luck to your son for RD
For deferred, any advise on if my daughter should think differently about how she has written her essays before applying to RD schools?
Her essays were obviously very strong to make it to âdeferredâ vs ârejectedâ! So content wise she probably shouldnât change anything, but honestly, it wouldnât hurt to have a second look at everything before she submits RD to other colleges. My son was accepted EA but after the fact he found two typos in his essay, one of them in the first line. He was mortified. It obviously didnât keep him out of Yale but he would have felt better about his essays had they not had the errors. Also, he found things he would have tweaked. But, she obviously had excellent essays to make it into the deferral pool so I donât think she should change anything generally!
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That is the same attitude I have taken with my S24 and his deferral. At least at Yale these days, a deferral is objectively a pretty strong result. So I think that is a good, not bad, sign for things like essays and activity lists and so on.
Not that things canât be reviewed and revised and tweaked and so on. But neither I nor our experienced college counselors are encouraging the Yale deferrees to make changes just for the sake of change.
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One other thing that stood out to me after my conversation with Mark Dunn was how Yale will turn away applicants they are confident will excel at other Ivies because they donât feel like Yaleâs liberal arts curriculum is optimal for them- i.e. students who may be very strong and even internationally recognized in one field but who donât show a lot of interdisciplinary involvement. He said that a lot of these very spiky applicants end up getting deferred but get in to great programs in their major interest at other very prestigious universities. After talking with a lot of other Yale EA admits, a common theme I noticed was that the vast majority seemed like really, really good fits for Yaleâs liberal arts structure. As in they would obviously benefit and take advantage of a super wide range of classes. Obviously there were some very focused admits as well, but even then they seemed to have essays that branched out quite a bit from their major focus. This is all anecdotal, but think that if Yale is still the top choice, a LOCI strongly highlighting interdisciplinary growth might be most impactful. And for very focused and accomplished applicants who were deferred or rejected, there was nothing wrong with your common app. It just might not have been the ideal Yale app.
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Seems like a good idea to me!
Exactly. Scores donât get you in, theyâre a screening mechanism to filter you out of the review pool. The question is: what is the threshold? Based on that interview with Yale dean of admissions, the number is a function of the school you came from.
I suspect that Yale is now only TO for certain special case applicants. Iâve been told that the Ivys want to pretend to be TO for as long as possible because it makes it easier for them to admit athletes with absurdly low test scores.
Itâs a little frustrating because Yale really was TO for all applicants a couple of years ago (and possibly last year). For them to say theyâre TO now is kinda like Bernie Madoff saying you can trust him with your money.
I note the following is on their website:
https://admissions.yale.edu/standardized-testing
Applicants who have successfully completed one or more ACT or SAT exams should consider including scores, even if those scores are below the ranges listed below. Yaleâs internal research has consistently shown that standardized test scores are a significant predictor of a studentâs undergraduate academic performance. When students include scores with their applications, the Yale Admissions Committee evaluates them within each studentâs unique context and uses them to augment other academic indicators throughout the application.
The Yale AO didnât really say anything different from that.
I think the somewhat problematic part might be this:
For applicants without scores, the Admissions Committee places greater weight on other parts of the application, such as high school transcripts, recommendation letters, and essays. Competitive candidates with or without scores are those whose applications clearly demonstrate a high degree of academic preparedness, a consistent record of scholastic success, and genuine intellectual curiosity.
In the abstract, this is also likely accurate and consistent. No test scores, your high school transcript, in context, better do the job of demonstrating a sufficiently high degree of academic preparedness, scholastic success, and intellectual curiosity by Yaleâs standards.
But in practice, what is not clear is what it takes for a high school transcript on its own to satisfy Yale and its peers. And I think a lot of people are under the impression that surely perfect grades is enough. And I think the truth is they may not be, not if Yale or its peers do not trust the rigor of your courses and the standards for those grades.
But that is really a deeper issue than just trying to figure out the best messaging on test policies. There has always been a problem with these colleges trusting some 4.0s a lot more than others. Apparently many feel it has become a more acute problem since COVID. But communicating to kids and parents that perfect grades may not always be enough, including even if they took what advanced courses that they could at their high school, is going to be a very sensitive topic.
Which doesnât mean I donât agree they should be more open about this. But I can see why they might be reluctant to just rip the lid off and explain exactly how they compare transcripts from different schools.
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The Yale dean certainly did not contradict that statement, but he was much more specific. He said that a Yale applicant must distinguish themself from their high school colleagues with both grades and test scores. A near perfect GPA is a must, and so is a near perfect test score if the applicant is from a high performing school. He stated that test scores are considered relative to the school, so that an applicant with an imperfect score is only considered if the average score at the high school is very low.
He also stated that an unsubmitted score is assumed to be well below the Yale median.
So to me, Yaleâs current definition of âtest optionalâ is more than a little misleading. Yale is clearly not test optional if you come from a high performing school.
The dean further stated that GPA/test scores are not dwelled upon, but they are looked at first. To me this is a very strong suggestion they are used as screening criteria. I think everyone knows that even if Yale only accepted perfect GPAs and perfect test scores, theyâd still have way too many applicants. GPA and test scores only get you past the initial screen so that your application is actually read. Itâs all the other stuff (relative to what the class needs) that gets you in.
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I actually donât recall him saying either of those things. I donât disagree with the proposition, but I would say I more got that information from looking at SCOIR and such, not anything the Dean said.
Certainly this was true before 2020. Actually I would have assumed back then that near perfect test scores were required regardless of high school.
To me the problem isnât Yaleâs admission criteria, itâs the fact that theyâve labeled it the same as it was in 2020-21 and itâs clearly not the same at all.
If I own a pizza place, and due to an extreme surplus pizza event I hang a big sign that says, âFree Pizza!â and give out free pizza, thatâs one thing.
But if I hang the sign again a month later, and when people show up I say, âOh sorry, the pizza is free but only to members of my family,â then Iâm being a little disingenuous.
Yale is labeling their application as test optional but itâs really only TO to a small group (at least according to the dean of admissions). If tests are required, make them required!
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As I see it, the problem is that while some people, given both context and the rest of their application, may in practice need to submit a high test score even though it is not formally required, we know other people do not, because in fact many people still get admitted to Yale without submitting.
Which takes me back to what I consider to be the bigger question, which would be identifying exactly who fits into which category.
And I donât think that is amenable to a simple answer. Out here, people like to create simple rules and categories and such, but I donât think it is every really that simple for these colleges. There are so many different factors, so many different things that are more sliding scales than simple yes/no questions, and so on.
Indeed, Yaleâs initial review specifically requires a senior, experienced admissions officer. If they donât think they can properly instruct a junior admissions officer, how could they instruct the general public?
Dartmouth apparently is using a type of AI/Big Data modeling approach to initial sorting, with something like 64 different types of information. Again, how do you present that to the public?
Although actually, Dartmouth in theory could eventually release that model, or a version, and let people use it sort of like an NPC.
But short of that, I donât think it would be easy for them to specify who needs what sort of test score, if any, to get past the initial stage. There are too many other intersecting variables.
i recently received my admittance packet and I heard yale usually leaves a short handwritten note about what they really liked abt your application; i didnât get a note so i was wondering if theyre still doing that this year?
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Just off topic and for admin. Will this thread become or merge into Yale RD or will there be a new RD thread soon? Thanks!
There will be a separate RD thread
They are not required - we know of people at Yale who did not submit test scores. However, it is one more âlayerâ in the application. Great grades, extracurriculars, essays, test scores, recommendations, special skill⊠it all adds up and can set applicants apart, among many excellent applicants. My son absolutely did the SAT as he came from a small high school that only offered two APs. It was one more way he could show that he could handle the work at Yale; it was not onerous, and he studied only with free resources. I donât know why anyone would not take the SAT, personally.
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Aw, thatâs too bad! 
My son did receive a handwritten note, but I hadnât realized it was a âthingâ. They obviously really liked your application though, if you were accepted EA!! Maybe your admissions officer had a big stack of acceptedâs and couldnât get to all the notes. Congratulations on your acceptance!!! Yale is the BEST!
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Iâd really like to see the data on that, especially this year vs previous. Yes, unhooked students were getting into Yale without test scores in the Covid years (we all know some), but the dean of admissions seems to say thatâs now quite unusual. You need to come from a high school thatâs rigorous enough to prepare you for Yale, yet has way below average test scores. How many high schools fit this category? Itâs like trying to find a 1000sf house with 15 bedrooms.
It may be that the junior AOs are really just essay readers and donât actually make any admissions decisions. They might not even be aware of the screening criteria, Yale might not want it widely known.
Itâs almost certainly not in Dartmouthâs interest to release that, for lots of reasons.
I thought the dean was pretty clear.