Four hundred seventeen books and a portrait of King George: since Elihu Yale’s original donation of funds and materials, Yale University has grown into one of the great intellectual centers of the world.
But in the midst of groundbreaking research, technological innovation, and imaginative creation, the school retains a sense of the past, a legacy that sets it apart even from other Ivy League institutions.
Yale’s campus traditions, its system of Residential Colleges, its libraries and museums – even its iconic architecture – serve as a beacon of intellectual light to students around the world, who come to the campus for structure, for camaraderie, for inspiration, and for a singular kind of academic challenge.
One of the most selective schools in the country, Ivy League university Yale is ranked not only the 4th best school in the nation, but also the 4th best value among U.S. schools. It’s tied for 12th best in undergraduate teaching, with stellar company: Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and Harvard.
Located in New Haven, Connecticut, a small city on the shore of the Long Island Sound, Yale’s tree-lined campus and Gothic architecture are the portrait of a traditional American education. Throughout the years, Yale’s faculty has represented the elite in every field of study, guiding lights of each discipline.
A degree from a school this revered almost certainly opens doors to a particular kind of life.
Yale University Acceptance Rate
Yale met with a record-breaking 46,905 applications for the Class of 2025, a 33% jump from the previous year. The school admitted 2,169 – that’s a 4.62 admissions rate – and waitlisted 1,030 candidates.
This flood of prospective students swept the entire Ivy League in the wake of the pandemic, and it’s still unclear which factors led to it.
Many schools suspended their standardized test requirements, possibly making the application process more welcoming to some students.
Some factors are harder to track.
One theory about the tremendous sudden increase in applications to Ivy League schools points to increased student autonomy after a year of adversity.
Navigating a year of online classes and various kinds of unexpected turns, students fresh from overcoming extraordinary obstacles may be more willing to take a chance on a dream school.
Isolation could have left students outside the pressure of competition with peers, or less likely to suffer anxiety at the thought of public failure. Whatever the reason, many students last year hit “submit” on applications to universities they may once have believed beyond their reach.
As a result, Ivy league acceptance rates stand at an all-time low. Not because Yale or any other Ivy League school has become more exclusive, but because more students than ever reached for an Ivy League education.
GPA
There’s not much getting around the fact that you need nearly a 4.0 unweighted GPA to clear the admissions process at Yale.
Yale does not provide data about its admitted students’ exact GPAs, but Yale students tend to place in the top 10% of their home high school classes.
According to data from Yale students who provided their application GPA scores, the average high school GPA for a Yale student is most often reported as 3.95 on an unweighted scale. It is safe to say that students with nearly all A’s on their transcript have the most success in applying to Yale.
Yale professes that it does not, like many colleges, reweight or refigure transcript GPAs in order to compare students.
Instead, the university’s Admissions Department promises a holistic evaluation of each applicant’s transcript, including GPA as reported by the home high school, the rigor of the student’s high school course work, and any other data in the transcript (honors, awards, certificates) representing academic success.
Yale does look to see that students have maximized their school’s offerings, taking the most challenging courses available to them, especially in their stated areas of interest.
SAT & ACT Requirements
Test scores for Yale’s accepted applicants represent the highest range in all platforms. Depending on the rest of the applicant’s folder, successful candidates tend to score 1460-1570 on the SAT.
Sixty-eight percent of Yale’s Class of 2024 had a math score between 760 and 800; verbal scores were slightly lower, but comparable.
ACT scores for admitted students typically span the highest range, 33 – 35, or the 99th percentile of test-takers.
Advanced Placement courses can accelerate a student’s access to higher level coursework at Yale. In a few cases, Yale does grant credit for a score of 4 or 5 on specific AP exams, but it’s essential to check the school’s policy before investing a lot of time in taking many AP tests.
Beginning with the Class of 2025, standardized tests are optional for admission to Yale. The decision to remove the requirement – a response to COVID-19 and the problems with test administration – may be temporary, but no reinstatement of standardized test application requirements has been announced.
Requirements & Admission Tips
Deciding to apply to Yale doesn’t have to be intimidating. When defining their own selection process, Yale identifies the ideal Yale student as people who want to make the world better, people who are willing to put in the work it takes to become future leaders.
Yale wants to know from applicants that they have done their research. They want students to arrive on campus knowing what they signed up for, ready to maximize their time in a place with access to so many resources of all kinds.
One of the most critical parts of a pitch to Yale is the candidate’s understanding of Yale itself and how that knowledge is featured in the application.
Once an applicant communicates a sincere desire to attend Yale, not only clearly but rationally, with layers of evidence detailing Yale’s essential role in the student’s development, the applicant can focus on the attributes he or she can bring to Yale’s community.
All schools want to know how prospective new students can enrich their campuses; schools with smaller student bodies pay even more particular attention to what each new candidate can bring.
Yale creates a particular environment for students; any Yalie-in-the-making must express how they can participate actively in Yale’s campus life.
Successful applicants highlight any projects, activities, or service that demonstrate not only their academic prowess, but their ability to be a vital member of a community.
There are a few practical measures that earnest Yale applicants can take that can increase their chances.
Applying during the Early Action period demonstrates a serious interest in attending Yale. There is a slightly higher chance of admission for early applicants, though that advantage does seem to be diminishing in recent years.
Students with financial need can join Questbridge, the National College Match scholarship program that works with over 45 excellent undergraduate programs nationally. Yale accepted 72 students to the Class of 2025 through the Questbridge program.
Essays
Yale Admissions takes the essays and recommendations parts of the application very seriously.
These facets of the process are not perfunctory in any way; the school isn’t checking to see if students can write, and it’s less likely to be impressed with superficial letters from teachers who never interacted with a student outside class.
Any student with intentions of applying to a selective school of any kind, let alone one as exclusive as Yale, should cultivate strong relationships with instructors, especially in their fields of interest.
When it’s time to write letters of recommendation, those instructors will be able to provide the critical, personal narratives that bring a candidate to life for the committee.
The same kind of personal detail and dynamic writing helps student essays stand out for the committee.
There are helpful guides and courses geared toward creating an engaging college essay, but students should not try to follow a popular formula or scaffolding since readers will certainly see that technique repeated endlessly.
Notable Alumni
Five Presidents.
Supreme Court Justices.
Inventors of Morse Code and the cotton gin.
CEOs of Pepsi and IBM. Pioneers of aviation and brain surgery.
Revolutionaries, Olympic Medalists, film stars, and Nobel Prize Winners. Three hundred years of higher thought provides incredible momentum.
Yale’s list of famous alumni reads like a summary of American history, scientific history, the history of business, mechanical innovation, of thought in general.
American author Thornton Wilder, the playwright of Our Town, graduated in 1920.
Groundbreaking pediatrician and activist Benjamin Spock received his B.A. a few years after.
On another end of the political and social spectrum, writer/commentator William F. Buckley also enrolled at Yale in the late 1940s.
Billionaire magnate Wilbur Ross, Watergate journalist Bob Woodward, leader of the Human Genome Project Francis Collins, and Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman went on from Yale to change the world.
Icon Meryl Streep completed her MFA., and Hillary Rodham Clinton earned her law degree.
Arthur Mutharika, President of Malawi, Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and other world leaders have studied at Yale.
Jonathan Edwards, American theologian and author of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God – Aaron Burr’s grandfather – left home at 13 to study at Yale. Its oldest Residential College is named for him.
Is Yale Right for You?
Students considering Yale don’t have to worry about the quality of instruction or the school’s reputation.
They do need to think about the lifestyle and the commitment involved in attending a college with an extraordinary history, grand traditions, and a formal social structure unlike most American universities.
Its Residential College system shapes undergraduate life: on these fourteen campuses, students live, work, and absorb the kind of lessons no curriculum can offer.
The network resembles the system of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge in England, though Yale’s version encompasses only the residential aspect; academic classes are not separated by college.
Every incoming freshman is assigned to a Residential College (no, there is no Sorting Hat), and after leaving the Old Campus dorms where the first-year students live, members spend the rest of their time at Yale living with their college.
Each separate college includes undergraduate rooms, a Master’s house, library, dining facility, and recreational facility, all arranged around a central courtyard.
Colleges hold their own events, attend school events together, and even have dinner together. The program allows for close mentorship from Fellows and Graduate Affiliates, faculty and graduate students who live in the Colleges, and advise students.
At Yale, students celebrate Yale-specific holidays and celebrations like Class Day, Founders Day, White Coat Day for new medical students, and others, each with specific rituals and activities.
Yale’s community bonds through these practices, and the curriculum outside the classroom is as important as the one that defines a student’s GPA.
Yale’s diversity statistics continue to evolve, but no strong student should feel like they aren’t Yale material.
It might surprise applicants to know that 19% of Yale’s Class of 2024 are first-generation college students. Only 8% of that same class are “legacy” students, meaning one or both parents attended Yale.
More than half of the Class of 2024 attended public high schools, and 49% speak a language other than English at home.
Yale’s a great place for students interested in majoring in Biomedical Engineering and related fields. Political Science, Global Affairs, Environmental Studies, and History are also noteworthy departments and majors.
