All Yale applicants are evaluated in a holistic, whole-person manner, meaning all aspects of your application are taken into consideration when making an admissions decision. Applicants are considered within their own context, so that no student is disadvantaged for not taking advantage of a resource that was not available to them. Yale seeks to admit students who have made the most of their circumstances, and who will contribute to our vibrant community.
Yale is, above all, an academic institution. This means academic strength is our first consideration in evaluating any candidate. The single most important document in your application is your high school transcript, which tells us a great deal about your academic drive and performance over time. We look for students who have consistently taken a broad range of challenging courses in high school and have done well. Your high school teachers can provide extremely helpful information in their evaluations. Not only do they discuss your performance in their particular class or classes, but often they write about such things as your intellectual curiosity, energy, relationships with classmates, and impact on the classroom environment. Obviously, it is important to ask for recommendations from teachers who know you well.
Admissions officers consider standardized test scores and transcripts together. Officers evaluate scores within each student’s unique context and use them to augment other academic indicators in the application. Strong scores are not a substitute for a weak transcript, and weaker scores do not disqualify an applicant.
There are no score cutoffs for standardized tests, and successful candidates present a range of scores. The middle 80% of ACT and SAT scores (the 10th to the 90th percentiles) of first-year students who enrolled were as follows:
These ranges provide a snapshot of the class, not a floor for competitiveness in Yale’s selection process. It is not the case that scores below a certain threshold “hurt” an application while those above “help” it. Scores below these ranges can still be helpful to establish an applicant’s academic preparation for Yale coursework.
Just as teacher recommendations are meant to give the admissions committee a glimpse of what you are like in the classroom, the counselor recommendation may provide us with a picture of your place in your high school class and in the larger school community. Your counselor can help us assess the degree of difficulty of your program, tell us what a particular leadership position means at your school, provide information on your background, and, in general, provide the sort of textured comments about you that would help your application come to life.
The Yale application tries to get at the personal side of the applicant through the use of several short essays whose scope is broad enough to accommodate most writers. We encourage you to take the writing of the essays seriously and to write openly and honestly about activities, interests, or experiences that have been meaningful to you. What is most important is that you write in your own voice. If an essay doesn’t sound like the person who writes it, it cannot serve very well as a personal statement. As with every document in the application, we read essays very carefully and try to get a full sense of the human being behind them.
We convene a committee of experienced admissions officers, Yale faculty, and Yale deans to select applicants who have shown exceptional engagement, ability, and promise.
Transcripts, test scores, essays, and recommendations help paint a picture not only of a student’s accomplishments to date but also of the ways in which an applicant has taken advantage of available opportunities. For example, does your school offer AP courses, an International Baccalaureate program, neither, or both? We only expect you to take advantage of such courses if your high school provides them.
Again, we are looking for students who will make the most of Yale and the most of their talents. Knowing how you’ve engaged in the resources and opportunities at your high school gives us an expectation of how you might engage the resources at Yale if admitted.
Describing the process of selecting future Yale students, President Kingman Brewster once wrote, “I am inclined to believe that the person who gives every ounce to do something superbly has an advantage over the person whose capacities may be great but who seems to have no desire to stretch them to their limit.” Within the context of each applicant’s life and circumstances, we look for that desire and ability to stretch one’s limits.
Yale admissions officers Hannah and Mark created the hit podcast Inside the Yale Admissions Office to increase transparency and reduce anxiety around selective admissions. Each episode has application advice, firsthand insights from admissions officers, and an inside look at the admissions process.
First-generation students
Top 10% class rank
Rate of admission
From rural and small towns
US States and territories represented
Countries represented
Pell Grant recipients
Receiving need-based financial aid
Challenge yourself with a balanced academic program that includes demanding courses in a wide range of subjects.
Request letters of recommendation from two teachers who know you well.
Write about something that matters to you. Share your unique perspective. Use your own voice.
A limited number of applicants are invited for an evaluative interview.
