Yale c/o 2020 Applicants (2016-2017) Forum

[AnonHumanPerson123]

Perhaps this story will be useful or entertaining to some of you fellow Yale applicants.

I was concerned going into this weekend that we might see the first big wave of rejections from Yale on Saturday morning. This happened the second Saturday of March last year, and Yale does seem to have been doing that thing lately where they queue up emails to be sent at 4:30AM so that you see them first thing in the morning. This speculation based on previous year's dates is always very loose, but I didn't like the heightened risk since I had plans on Saturday that I very much wanted to be mentally and emotionally present for. A rejection could really ruin the day, and I could handle it just as despondently on a Sunday as I could on a Saturday.

The simple solution would just be to log out of my personal email account for 24 hours. However, I thought the probability of a decision on any specific day is actually quite low, and what would give me the most relief would be to have a confirmation that in fact nothing at all had happened so that I could put aside my worries for the remainder of the weekend. One might wish to devise a system where they would reliably get a confirmation of "no news," but would hear nothing in the case of a rejection. But there's an obvious problem in that, in the absence of the "no news" notification, you could infer that there was in fact news of some sort, and that would be the most distracting scenario of all.

So instead I considered several schemes in which I would get my "no news" confirmation only some of the time. I eventually decided to log out of my account and give control to my sister. Her instructions were to check my email in the morning, and, in the case of a rejection, tell me nothing. In the very likely case of no emails whatsoever from Yale, she was to flip a coin to decide whether to tell me something. For an acceptance, which I assumed was even lower probability on this one particular day in mid-March, she would also flip a coin. The only message she would send me if the coin flip indicated it would be "no bad news."

The weekend is over, and of course nothing happened, but I think this is a somewhat clever scheme for insulating myself from the risk of bad news while allowing myself the relief of "no bad news" a little less than half the time. It is also absolutely insane and an illustration of the unflattering depths of anxiety this process brings out in some people.

Then again, the time feels really ripe for a rejection wave, and perhaps some of you also have plans you're looking forward to and a third party you would trust with your email credentials...

LOL this is great.

[cmkk13]

deleted

[Pozzo]

Is anyone still waiting for a "complete" email? Just checking whether I should be concerned.

[concern level increasing]

anyone??

When'd you submit?

[cmkk13]

Is anyone still waiting for a "complete" email? Just checking whether I should be concerned.

When'd you submit?

mid/late Feb!

[AndromedaGalaxy]

Is anyone still waiting for a "complete" email? Just checking whether I should be concerned.

[concern level increasing]

anyone??

When'd you submit?

mid/late Feb!

It took me four weeks. You're probably just a few days away.

[cmkk13]

Is anyone still waiting for a "complete" email? Just checking whether I should be concerned.

When'd you submit?

mid/late Feb!

It took me four weeks. You're probably just a few days away.

fantastic - thanks. good to know I'm not an outlier!

eta: or if I am, I'm in good company

[Gabriel_is_Satan]

Is anyone still waiting for a "complete" email? Just checking whether I should be concerned.

[concern level increasing]

anyone??

When'd you submit?

mid/late Feb!

They probably got a lot of last-minute applications. Wouldn't worry about it just yet. If you have nothing by the end of next week, maybe shoot them an email? (Although they're pretty explicit about not wanting candidates to do that and just be patient ... Your call.)

[dojodawg]

So if we applied in November and haven't heard back is it pretty much gg? Are they just waiting to reject us?

[pretzeltime]

So if we applied in November and haven't heard back is it pretty much gg? Are they just waiting to reject us?

IDK what gg means but....I think for most early applicants, we are bound for WL/reject at this point. Could be an exception here or there tho.

[potterotter]

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[AnonHumanPerson123]

So if we applied in November and haven't heard back is it pretty much gg? Are they just waiting to reject us?

IDK what gg means but....I think for most early applicants, we are bound for WL/reject at this point. Could be an exception here or there tho.

GG means "good game" which is something that gamers say to each other when a game is over. I agree with pretzel. Here are the possibilities:
-Your application did not make it to faculty, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a low score, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a medium-ish score, in which case you could be accepted after all the higher scores from later are accepted
Keep in mind that none of us are 100% sure about what we say though so take it with a grain of salt.

Could someone be WL'ed without going to faculty?

[potterotter]

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[dojodawg]

So if we applied in November and haven't heard back is it pretty much gg? Are they just waiting to reject us?

IDK what gg means but....I think for most early applicants, we are bound for WL/reject at this point. Could be an exception here or there tho.

GG means "good game" which is something that gamers say to each other when a game is over. I agree with pretzel. Here are the possibilities:
-Your application did not make it to faculty, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a low score, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a medium-ish score, in which case you could be accepted after all the higher scores from later are accepted
Keep in mind that none of us are 100% sure about what we say though so take it with a grain of salt.

Could someone be WL'ed without going to faculty?

Im not sure! I think maybe itd depend on how generous faculty were with points that cycle, but my instincts say that if you were waitlisted you went to faculty, so no. Again I can't emphasize enough how much baseless guessing this answer has.

Thanks for the insight. Yeah I was just wondering if the acceptances in April are generally just people who applied later or if some borderline candidates got in as well.

[potterotter]

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[Gabriel_is_Satan]

Could someone be WL'ed without going to faculty?

Im not sure! I think maybe itd depend on how generous faculty were with points that cycle, but my instincts say that if you were waitlisted you went to faculty, so no. Again I can't emphasize enough how much baseless guessing this answer has.

Given how Asha describes the underlying philosophy of YLS' admissions process, it would be very uncharacteristic for someone to end up on the WL (and hence a potential admit on very short notice) without going to the faculty first. So if you don't make it to the faculty, you're out. Then again, does this really matter? You don't know any of this anyway ...

My sense is that Yale knows an admit when they see one, so there should be very few candidates whose file is pushed back to April before a decision is made. If your file went complete more than, say, eight weeks ago and you haven't heard back, you're probably out.

[potterotter]

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[Monday]

.

[potterotter]

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[Monday]

.

[potterotter]

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[AnonHumanPerson123]

GG means "good game" which is something that gamers say to each other when a game is over. I agree with pretzel. Here are the possibilities:
-Your application did not make it to faculty, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a low score, in which case it'd be WL/reject
-Your application made it to faculty and they gave you a medium-ish score, in which case you could be accepted after all the higher scores from later are accepted
Keep in mind that none of us are 100% sure about what we say though so take it with a grain of salt.

Could someone be WL'ed without going to faculty?

Im not sure! I think maybe itd depend on how generous faculty were with points that cycle, but my instincts say that if you were waitlisted you went to faculty, so no. Again I can't emphasize enough how much baseless guessing this answer has.

Asha said 80% of applicants are rejected by her and the admissions team while 1% was accepted by them with 19% passed to faculty for review, so I assume the WL is drawn from that 19% pile.

And faculty can't be any more generous with points this cycle than in previous cycles because they have to assign points on a "curve." Asha allows only so many 4/3s to be given within the assigned applicant group. The rest receive a 2 from that faculty.

Where did you find this information that points have to be given on a curve? Please link me, as I have been telling people that faculty are given no guidelines at all and I don't want to be fake news.

I'm not sure where I read/heard it, but I also thought that there was a strict grading curve during faculty review. I also thought that there were more presumptive admits than 1% of applicants. 2801 applicants last year means that there would only be ~28 presumptive admits. I thought that I read that this number was closer to 60 (but i have no idea where I read that). Nonetheless, if Asha said 1% on a webinar, then I'm sure that's accurate.

[pretzeltime]

tl;dr we're all screwed

[pretzeltime]

I feel that the Ides of March is an auspicious day for getting dinged by Yale. I say bring it on.

[SmallK]

I feel that the Ides of March is an auspicious day for getting dinged by Yale. I say bring it on.

Agreed. Today's alright for a bloodbath -- come on, Yale, I'm ready.

[AndromedaGalaxy]

I feel that the Ides of March is an auspicious day for getting dinged by Yale. I say bring it on.

Agreed. Today's alright for a bloodbath -- come on, Yale, I'm ready.

Cry havoc and let slip the dings of war?