What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m a Yale alum and I spend too much time on Instagram. I think about your question a lot.

And I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon of a lot of girls who are very smart but average-ish but have moms with large social media followings matriculating at Yale in the last few years. These aren’t influencer types but more like designers, artists, etc and they send their kids to top but not tippy top privates. My assumption is that social class, a certain sophistication that might come out in essays, and going to privates with historically large groups that is accepted to Yale is a big help. You need signifiers that are shortcuts for the admissions staff.

So for example, going to a school like St. Ann’s in Brooklyn means you have already gotten through a few different gauntlets of selectivity and that helps justify accepting multiple students per year when an average suburban HS would struggle to get a similar student noticed.

This really rings true for all the recent admits we personally know. A public example might be Kat Dubrow, Heather Dubrow's daughter.

this is literally the only example I can think of.

at our feeder HS, yale admits are either legacy or just really smart - like national debate winner.

I listed them above but you must have missed it:
Ben Affleck's kid
Conan O'Brien's kid
Gwyneth's kid

this is not a very long list!

Conan's daughter has graduated. He does have a son at Harvard. It's a step-kid for Gwyneth - her kids are at Vandy and Brown. And yep, Affleck. But really, any college of 6k will have this many celebs!

Vanessa Kerry
Theo Spielberg
Katia Elizabeth Washington
Barbara Bush
Malia Obama
George Bezos
John Colbert
Grace Murdoch

No, not any college of 6k will have this number of celebs.

Not even one of those people is at Yale now.

If you’re going to ask about celeb children who have EVER attended a college - that’s not an /n of 6k.

Incorrect. Stephen Colbert’s son is a current student at Yale.

he was class of 25. not sure if he's taking another year, but he graduated HS in 2020 so graduating college in 26 is pretty late. I do think he a took a year off during covid, which is why he's listed as class of 25 on the whiffenpoofs site.

anyway, the fact we're going deep on this is proving the opposite. Yale is not usually celeb heavy. Brown is and harvard is.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Listen to the podcast. They kind of tell you.

Your sciences DD better be interdisciplinary and be able to show a long history of that interest.

Understand the ethos.

OP: to answer question above why Yale, what PP describes is why Yale is her super reach (but also very excited about Rice, Swarthmore, Pomona etc.). She wants an interdisciplinary school where you don’t go there with a job path in mind. She is very intellectually curious, never studies for grades but still gets top marks, loves learning, and is top of class for sciences, writing and languages. She wants to learn from other people different than her and find ways to improve communities. This is not her sales speech, she lives for this stuff. Her teachers love her and have involved her in their projects, curriculum planning during the summer and even one in her PhD paper when DD never asked. She is a nerd, humble, quietly ambitious but not competitive.

She sounds great. She might want to really think about a research university vs a SLAC. (I am having this same conversation with my kid.) A top research university has lots of resources and interesting speakers and events, but as a student you are rarely the number one priority of faculty members and it’s somewhat hit or miss if you can establish those relationships. I think this can be especially tough if you’re a quiet girl and not a showboater—at least that was my experience at HYP years ago. At a SLAC students get a lot more individual attention from professors because teaching is their priority.

Agrees that she sounds like kids at the SLACs where love of learning is strong.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone hear the recent podcast comparing 2 Yale Common App essays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Attending parent events at Yale and among all the parents and students we met, we did not meet any celebrity families.

My kid is pretty interested in one topic, pursued it pretty extensively and to our horror that is all kid wrote about in the essays. In one essay in particular, kid took a particularly boring and utterly inscrutable topic and explained why it is so interesting. We are horrified enough to show it to one knowledgeable person who also was pretty negative about it. Ended up with admits to three of the HYPSM.

This one goes to Harvard: https://apple.news/AqBBrklcvQtOA4fusri1YNQ

So? My guess is tons of people would have no idea who she is or that she’s royalty.

James Ford is a tv reporter and his daughter is a current freshman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen to the podcast. They kind of tell you.

Your sciences DD better be interdisciplinary and be able to show a long history of that interest.

Understand the ethos.

OP: to answer question above why Yale, what PP describes is why Yale is her super reach (but also very excited about Rice, Swarthmore, Pomona etc.). She wants an interdisciplinary school where you don’t go there with a job path in mind. She is very intellectually curious, never studies for grades but still gets top marks, loves learning, and is top of class for sciences, writing and languages. She wants to learn from other people different than her and find ways to improve communities. This is not her sales speech, she lives for this stuff. Her teachers love her and have involved her in their projects, curriculum planning during the summer and even one in her PhD paper when DD never asked. She is a nerd, humble, quietly ambitious but not competitive.

She sounds great. She might want to really think about a research university vs a SLAC. (I am having this same conversation with my kid.) A top research university has lots of resources and interesting speakers and events, but as a student you are rarely the number one priority of faculty members and it’s somewhat hit or miss if you can establish those relationships. I think this can be especially tough if you’re a quiet girl and not a showboater—at least that was my experience at HYP years ago. At a SLAC students get a lot more individual attention from professors because teaching is their priority.

Agrees that she sounds like kids at the SLACs where love of learning is strong.

OP: thanks. I would love for her to attend a SLAC. Any suggestion for reach target safety SLAC for this DD?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Reading through the above posts; sounds like you need to be a unicorn - the child of a celebrity, an instagram influencer, whose application needs to be reviewed and polished (but not too polished); a URM, who plays a niche sport, but not a niche sport, and not a URM, child of a CEO, but not a nepo-baby…. All of the above, but ultimately, not being who you really are 🫤

Nope. What you need to be is who you really are — skills, passions, accomplishments, interests and all. But, if your interests and skills are pretty common and easily gained, there won’t really be anything that makes one application stand out from another— beyond personality characteristics. If that’s not who you “really” are — but who you’ve been coached to be, they’re not looking to just add another checked box to your list of accomplishments, for the most part. They’re also looking for at least some students whose lives will be changed by being there — who will then go on to impact other lives and communities. That’s my take and my experience, anyway.

That's why people hire college coaches starting in 9th grade. Develop the pointy narrative. I know 2 kids at Yale that benefitted from this btw. So as for the idea that AOs can suss out "authenticity" - nope.

I love Yale and their AOs but agree they cannot tell authenticity from coaching! Our high school sent one there this year and it is so obvious this kid had a consultant. I don’t know the kid personally but have seen his resume — ugh Hannah and Mark, do better!

[Anonymous]

Some pragmatic advice: Make sure your kid builds a "spike" in an area that's more niche and under-pursued (Anthropology, sociology, linguistics, film, etc.)

If your kid applies for STEM or Econ, they'll be in a bloodbath.

One of the reason DMV families struggle so much in the admissions process is that their kids all want to go on the same pre-professional tracks and end up competing with each other.

[Anonymous]

Athletic ability

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone hear the recent podcast comparing 2 Yale Common App essays?

No, can you link? (It was the Yale admissions podcast?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some pragmatic advice: Make sure your kid builds a "spike" in an area that's more niche and under-pursued (Anthropology, sociology, linguistics, film, etc.)

If your kid applies for STEM or Econ, they'll be in a bloodbath.

One of the reason DMV families struggle so much in the admissions process is that their kids all want to go on the same pre-professional tracks and end up competing with each other.

I think you have to look a little more closely at STEM. If you're a biology major looking to go to med school....Yale is drowning in those. But if you want to pursue a hard science like chemistry or physics and you have some serious science credentials, they will take a look. Yale would like to attract more top students in these fields.

Or at least they did before the current administration's war on science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone hear the recent podcast comparing 2 Yale Common App essays?

No, can you link? (It was the Yale admissions podcast?)

No, it is Inside the Admissions Process by InGenius Prep

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Yale alum and I spend too much time on Instagram. I think about your question a lot.

And I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon of a lot of girls who are very smart but average-ish but have moms with large social media followings matriculating at Yale in the last few years. These aren’t influencer types but more like designers, artists, etc and they send their kids to top but not tippy top privates. My assumption is that social class, a certain sophistication that might come out in essays, and going to privates with historically large groups that is accepted to Yale is a big help. You need signifiers that are shortcuts for the admissions staff.

So for example, going to a school like St. Ann’s in Brooklyn means you have already gotten through a few different gauntlets of selectivity and that helps justify accepting multiple students per year when an average suburban HS would struggle to get a similar student noticed.

The opposite can also be true, being a standout in a low SES public school in the middle of nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Yale like Harvard is living on its past glory. There are many schools providing better overall experiences. Let's not perpetuate the myth that the only path to success is through 10 schools. We all know that's not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yale like Harvard is living on its past glory. There are many schools providing better overall experiences. Let's not perpetuate the myth that the only path to success is through 10 schools. We all know that's not true.

I dont think it's true and nobody in this thread said it's true. so let's not perpetuate a myth by randomly inserting it in every thread.

Also, I think the overall experience at Yale is pretty terrific and Harvard ROI is still up there. I'm not gonna worry about those kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yale like Harvard is living on its past glory. There are many schools providing better overall experiences. Let's not perpetuate the myth that the only path to success is through 10 schools. We all know that's not true.

So start a thread about it. This poster is just asking about admission to Yale University. Lots of people don't want admission to yale University and that is fine. This thread is not for them.