Yale University

“Based on statistics, applicants who do well in schoolApr 09 2006Undecided
Based on statistics, applicants who do well in school have a better chance. However, at the heart of the matter, Yale is looking for cool kids who are leaders. Make that apparent in listing your extracurricular activities and essays. Be original. Be yourself. Be weird. Yale apparently likes that. Once you get here, you'll realize that EVERYONE here is weird; some people are just the legitimately-strange kind of weird, while others are just the legitimately-cool kind of weird. Weirdness breeds genius, I guess.
SAT: 1600 Female

“I think I had it pretty easyJul 12 2005Economics
I think I had it pretty easy. This isn't really because I am any smarter than people that are here. Rather, it was luck and strategy. I had a chance to attend Exeter but I chose not to. I wanted to stay close to my hometown friends and frankly, I did not really care about the quality of my high school education. Unlike those smart, brilliant kids who went to competitive schools (private and public alike), I didn't have to worry about cut-throat competition. I did just enough to get an A or A-. Instead of filling my schedule with meaningless AP courses, I took an occasional art or music class with no GPA boost. While many of my peers skipped lunch to take another AP/Honors course, I had lunch and ran an a cappella group (ironically, I am not involved with the a cappella scene here, which is quite big). Granted I still ended up taking 8 AP courses and 9 AP exams, but I was definitely known as the slacker of the bunch. I think I was ranked 13 or 14 out of 500 when I graduated, but I was the only one to get an offer of admission from Yale or Harvard. I really think that this is because I was able to show character through my transcript. My essay was ok and my extracurricular activities were average. I had good test scores but at least three people in my high school class had near-perfect scores and higher ranks. Take a look at your transcript. Does it say something about you? Or is it just a compilation of difficult classes?
ACT: 35 SAT: 1600 Male

“Stand outAug 06 2004Political Science
Stand out. Near perfect SAT scores, first-in-class rankings, heads of multiple clubs don't add up to much when you consider that almost everybody else who is applying have the same credentials. Be unique in your essay -- make the admissions officer reading it be able to distinguish you from all the other academically gifted students. And great references help -- get them from teachers whom you really know well, and can elaborate a great deal on why you're a great student.
ACT: 32 SAT: 1490 Male

“Write excellentNov 17 2003Architecture
Write excellent essays and have great recommendations.
SAT: 1570 Female

“I worked really hard in high schoolSep 06 2003History/Histories (art history/etc.)
I worked really hard in high school. In order to get into Yale, you need amazing grades, high SAT scores (and high SAT II scores), solid extracurricular activities, leadership, community service, good teacher recommendations, and essays that will realy make you stand out.
SAT: 1470 Female