Anonymous
08/21/2025 20:00
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Malia Obama went to Harvard.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:57
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.
Why a niche sport? Football works just fine. Works really well for the rest of the Ivies as well.
Because thousands of kids will be good at football, and hundreds —or more — of them will also be great students. The numbers change when you’re looking at niche sports. So, yes, being great at football is a plus — if the coaches are interested, but being a national or world class fencer would give you more of an edge — again, if the coaches are interested, because the number of world class fencers who are great students who also apply to Yale with any given cohort is smaller. If the coach needs fencers they’re choosing from a much smaller pool of prospective students.
To add, it’s not just sports. A bassoon player might have an edge over yet another violinist. Yale also has a solid music culture— between the Glee Club, the singing groups, and the drama programs, so a solid interest in these areas might add a slight edge to an application.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:56
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:I recommend you start listening to elite admissions podcasts. "The Game" is a really good one, and he really goes deep in analyzing flaws of applications and how to stand out. He has a 5 hr. deep dive into a Stanford application that was really revealing.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-game-a-guide-to-elite-college-admissions/id1745045021
People who are this invested need to go touch grass.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:50
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
I know 2 siblings who are there. Unhooked, bright but not curing cancer. In their case probably most importantly, they have unusually magnetic personalities and have been difference makers in their HS communities. I assume they filled the personality and charm quota which is much needed at Ivys these days.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:46
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
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 🫤
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:31
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
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.
While my experience at Yale — also years ago —is different. At least at that time, Yale had lots of seminar classes, plus additional seminars sponsored by the residential colleges, including some seminars and smaller classes listed as open to both graduate and undergraduate students. At least half of my courses probably had fewer than 15 students. Some of those classes included mandatory 1-1 chats with the professors. As a quiet person myself, I got a LOT of individual attention from professors —who encouraged my interests.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 19:10
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.
Why a niche sport? Football works just fine. Works really well for the rest of the Ivies as well.
Because thousands of kids will be good at football, and hundreds —or more — of them will also be great students. The numbers change when you’re looking at niche sports. So, yes, being great at football is a plus — if the coaches are interested, but being a national or world class fencer would give you more of an edge — again, if the coaches are interested, because the number of world class fencers who are great students who also apply to Yale with any given cohort is smaller. If the coach needs fencers they’re choosing from a much smaller pool of prospective students.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 15:15
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Science major DD. Top 5% from highly-respected private, but with average ECs and no other hooks. Very well-liked by teachers.
No one has a better than 5% chance at yale or any of these types of schools, unless you are the child of a president or F50 CEO or other titan of business.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 15:13
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.
Why a niche sport? Football works just fine. Works really well for the rest of the Ivies as well.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 15:01
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
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.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 14:49
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.
This is pretty much guaranteed to not work anymore. At one time it was a path but now its mostly a no go unless you are at the very top. Same for fencing so people can drop that one as a path as well.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 14:13
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 14:05
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Anonymous
08/21/2025 13:54
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Anonymous wrote:Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.
Or have a very rich and bold faced name parent.
Anonymous
08/20/2025 13:43
Subject: What does one need to have a better than 5% chance at Yale?
Be an athletic recruit in niche sport like Squash.