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What Yale Looks For in Applicants

The answer to "what Yale looks for" is one that thousands of high school applicants consider every year. If not "what Yale looks for," then they ask "what Stanford looks for" or "what Carnegie Mellon looks for" or what any other dream school seeks. When I was admitted to Yale in 2009, the admission rate was 7.5%. It since dropped even further to 6.7% of applicants admitted. These are horrifyingly smaller numbers, which are actually even smaller for the Regular Decision pool of applicants. Given these statistics, what is Yale looking for?

The answer is complex because there are many factors to consider. Despite these low admittance rates, I’m one of thousands of students who went to Yale over the last several years, and someone else’s story will be different than mine. But what do our stories have in common? What’s the answer to “what does Yale look for?”

Although there are numerous ways to “get in,” there are some similarities among successful applications. The three tips I’ve outlined below aren’t supposed to be a step-by-step to-do list. They should be applied to your life and your context. I’ve included examples of the way I did these things, but if everyone tried to do the exact same things this would defeat the purpose of my answer: think about how you stand out. Inherently, you stand out by being different.

Therefore, the first actionable tip to do is

1. Think about the people around you…and then do something different than what everyone else is doing!

Context matters immensely in college admissions. Admissions officers are looking for students who stand out in the pool. That’s a familiar idea, but often the pool is a lot smaller than “everyone applying to Yale.” The pool is other students at your high school. It’s other students from your state. It’s other students of your race and socio-economic background. It’s other students with your same intended major.

Every top school wants to create a diverse student body in every sense of the word. Only so many Economics majors will be admitted. What makes you different (and more interesting) than the other Economics students who applied?

This idea of standing out isn’t only about what you’ll contribute to the diversity of the campus environment. It’s also about your character. It takes courage and fortitude to step off the path that others have followed. With all the focus on grades, test scores, and achievements surrounding the college application process, it can be easy to forget that admissions officers are looking for people who they think will engage with their community, care about learning, and make the most of their four years at their school. Personal qualities and intellectual curiosity matter just as much scores and grades in the admissions process.

When I was admitted to Yale, I received a letter from the Admissions Officer assigned to my region and who had read my application. Handwritten at the bottom of this letter was a note, “I really admired the way you got involved in and showed leadership through your local 4-H club.” I had raised sheep and traveled around New England showing my sheep through my county’s 4-H Club. During my Junior year, I was the vice president of my club and during Senior year I was elected president.

Three other students at my high school were in 4-H, and one of them was my younger sister. This wasn’t a common activity. In fact, it was an activity that didn’t match my high school where competitive skiing and volunteering in third-world countries were the types of activities on most students’ applications. Nearly everyone in my 4-H club came from more rural, less affluent communities and not from my town or high school.

It wasn’t easy to explain my interest in 4-H to my peers, when none of my friends owned farm animals and there may have been some unspoken stigma in my community against this type of hands-on work. But I did share my interest in raising livestock and I committed to this unusual (for my context) activity with hours of my time between the ages of 11 and 18.

So, step 1 when considering “what Yale looks for”: do something different!

2. Commit to activities for a long time and out of genuine love for these activities

As I pointed out above, my unusual 4-H activity wasn’t a passing commitment. I did this year round between 5th and 12th grade. When an admissions officer looks at the activities list on the Common Application, they pay careful attention to the years when you were involved in your activities. If you can check off grades 9, 10, 11, and 12, this activity will appear truly meaningful.

The point here about “genuine love” is not to be taken lightly. If you care about something, that shines through in your writing and speaking about this topic. If you care, you’ll naturally do those things that translate into an impressive application.

There’s a lot of focus in college admissions on the phrase “tangible results.” Students want to make sure they have something to show in the world for how they’ve spent their time. Yes, these “tangible results” are important. You don’t want to be perceived by the admissions officer reading your application to have been lazy, indifferent, or not very interested in anything.

But there are many intangible activities you may love and want to pursue, and you shouldn’t let these things go. Instead, find a way to show tangible results from these activities.

A good rule of thumb for finding your passion in high school: look at how you naturally spend your time. What can you do for hours and not feel bored? Is there anything you have to do to feel like your life has meaning?

Once you’ve identified these activities, consider step one. Do these activities stand out? Are they different than what everyone else does? If not, could you find a way to do them in a new or different way? If these activities are intangible, what could you do to share them, record them, or show them to your community? This will help demonstrate your impact to an admissions officer.

• Do you love reading? Start a public blog where you write about what you read. Start a book club in high school.
• Do you love playing video games? Organize a local gaming convention. Volunteer at your local nursing home to start a “game night” where you share games across different generations.
• Do you love watching movies? Start a “film society” at your high school where you screen and discuss movies. Storyboard and direct your own short film.

I spent a huge amount of time in high school writing fantasy short stories and, over the course of high school, a full-length novel. I started the novel during the summer before 9th grade, finished 300 pages in a year, and kept editing over the following years. This time spent writing my novel could have been spent on other, more tangible, activities. I didn’t have anything to show for these hours. I never tried to publish this. But I wrote one of my Yale supplemental essays about the experience of writing a full-length novel. This experience impacted me deeply because of the time I spent doing it. I had a lot to say about this experience that showed both my genuine love for it and my time commitment.

No activity is “bad” or “just for fun,” so long as you spend time doing it and think about why you care about it. Sometimes all you need is to be to show someone else why it matters.

So, step 2 for understanding “what Yale looks for”: show long-term commitment to activities or interests you’re passionate about.

3. Think critically about yourself and be able to show growth

Doing the same thing for a long time shows admissions officers that you aren’t doing it to get into college. You’re doing it because you care and, over time, you’re able to grow and improve within this activity.

This type of commitment to an activity over time also develops great material for supplementary essays. One of the most common supplementary essay prompts is to “expand on one of your extracurricular activities” (or some variation of this same prompt). It isn’t enough to explain what you did in this essay. You want to show why you did this and why it mattered to you.

If you’ve been committed to an activity while you’ve grown up over years, chances are that your “growing up” has been in someway linked to this activity. Maybe you’ve:

• had an “ah-ha!” moment
• figured out your future college major
• made life-changing friends
• met a mentor or role model
• explored your religion
• learned your family’s history
• confronted existing sexism or racism
• made your community a better place
• thought through your political convictions

...or had any of many other transformative experiences through and because of this activity. All of this is excellent ammunition for meaningful college essays.

I wrote my answer to this common question on extracurricular activities about my experiences through 4-H. Because of 4-H, I knew what it felt like to get up and work before school to care for my farm animals every single day, regardless of other demands on my time and regardless of the weather (I grew up in Maine). Because of 4-H, I knew how it felt to fail spectacularly in front of many people. Because of 4-H, I knew how it felt to work really hard and succeed. Because of 4-H, I knew how to have conversations with people of all ages. I knew how to work on a team. I knew that the work I did was connected to the livelihood of people all over the world and connected to complex ethical questions about food production, farming, and sustainability.

Commitment over time shows the important personal qualities of courage and fortitude that I’ve highlighted. It also creates a space for growth and self-reflection. It shows genuine interest and self-awareness. You know that it’s more impressive to have done an activity for a long time, but have you asked yourself what is impressive about commitment?

So, step 3 for grasping “what Yale looks for”: Understand the lessons you have learned throughout your experiences in high school.

Yes, grades, test scores, and achievements do matter when you apply to Yale. But, as everyone from admissions officers to high school teaches likes to point out, these things alone can’t get you into Yale. Every year, Yale rejects thousands of applicants with perfect SAT or ACT scores. The above list is intended to help you develop those less tangible aspects of a college application through which you can really stand out. But the same lessons can be applied to your academics. If you love your subject and you love learning, you’ll commit to it overtime and you’ll think critically about it. That will help you approach it in new and different ways. You’ll practice your skills, which leads to success in classes and on tests. My high school years, my college application process, and my experiences in college would have been vastly different if I’d been motivated by doing “what Yale looks for.” Instead, focus on the skill-building, genuine interest, diversity, and commitment. You don’t need to fit a formula, and you shouldn’t!