Yale Case Study
Yale Case Study - August 6th, 2024
INTRO
Yale University is located in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. As one of the most influential private universities in the United States, it is the third university established in the history of the United States. Its undergraduate school is as famous as Harvard University and Princeton University, and has competed with each other over the years. Among the top three undergraduate colleges in the United States, it ranks third in the 2019-20 US News undergraduate rankings. During the early application period this year, only two students in Hong Kong were admitted to Yale University. One of them was classmate X, an elite student from Singapore International School.
STUDENT SUMMARY
Throughout high school, X worked very hard. In the highly competitive IB curriculum system, he achieved nearly perfect results, with a GPA in the top 5%. He also received an A* in the IGCSE exam and a SAT score of 1500+. In terms of extracurricular activities, he loves table tennis and is the captain of the school's table tennis team. He has won many competitions on behalf of the school. He has participated in the Yale Young Global Scholars Program (YYGS) and Model United Nations. He is keen on charity activities and has worked with the local government to improve Hong Kong's educational resources and actively carry out community services.
Everyone admires X very much for his hard work and achievements. Such a competitive background has laid a solid foundation for college application strategies and essays. But this is not enough. In Hong Kong, in Mainland China, and even around the world, there are many students who work hard and are extremely competitive just like student X.
Through many online meetings and discussions, Endurable Education CEO Jason was deeply impressed by Student X’s mature mind, humility and compassionate qualities. This became the entry point for student X’s application strategy and the focus of his writing.
Each student should have a customized application strategy and essay writing direction. Past successful cases show that for some students or schools, it is appropriate to focus the essay on the achievements and rich activity background, which can add points to the application. However, when we are facing a top school like Yale, this strategy seems a bit bland. If you want to stand out, you have to find another way - something other students aren’t doing.
The main article begins with Student X’s sports experience, talking about how sports helped him open his eyes to understand and recognize social stratification and social inequality. Then, continuing the above reflections, he discusses current affairs in Hong Kong and similar historical events, which run through his academic interests. Finally, the paper ends with Student X’s personal project on exploring family history.
ENDURABLE COMMENTARY
Generally, we
do not recommend students to write down their family situation in the essay, because in many cases, the content of the essay will deviate from the applicant and become more relevant to family members, and what college admissions officers want to know is the applicant. Of course, one cannot generalize. The same material, different presentation methods, the effect will be completely different. And we can help students choose appropriate writing strategies to allow admissions officers to deepen their understanding of themselves while talking about their family situations.
In fact, this also reminded Jason of his own experience writing undergraduate application essays. Although someone told him that it was inappropriate to write about his grandfather, he still wrote about his grandfather's life experience and the impact it had on him, and was eventually admitted to many prestigious schools such as Harvard. At Endurable - we do things differently to help our students achieve goals that nobody else can.
With student X, Yale University is their dream school, and we are honored to witness the realization of that dream together.
We are very grateful to all the Endurable Education students and families, including Student X, for choosing to trust us and entrusting us with such a heavy responsibility of applying to universities. For this trust, we are willing to do our best to help students submit a perfect application to universities.
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