The college admissions process is notoriously opaque, with schools very hesitant to reveal anything about how their process works, and what actually causes them to admit one student or reject another. This creates a lot of unnecessary stress for students, and is one of the things we try to remedy with this blog and our other services, explaining the oddities and intricacies of the process. Sometimes, however, admissions officers do offer something of a peak into how things work, or claim to at least. This appears to be the case with the Yale Admissions Podcast, which, as the name suggests, is a podcast hosted by Yale Admissions Officers. In this article, we’re going to review this podcast, to see how useful it really is, and what insights you may be able to glean from it. Let’s jump right in!
What Yale’s Podcast Is
The podcast is hosted by two Yale Admissions staffers, who share various insights into Yale’s process, and sometimes interview their coworkers from the admissions office about specific topics. These generally cover three different branches of information, though different episodes can vary:
- General advice about approaching college admissions. This is usually fairly good advice, though is hardly unique.
- Specific information about Yale, but not anything surprising, the same information you can find on their website.
- Information about the workings and motivations of the admissions office. These are the rarest pieces, but by far the most interesting.
One thing this podcast never does, and likely cannot do, is give specific prescriptive advice on what to do to get into Yale. They can give you general tips, illustrate trends, show you what and how and why certain things in an application appeal to them, but there is no silver bullet, no one way to guarantee your acceptance to Yale. This is what many students look for in this podcast, and leave disappointed when they can’t find it.
This is because of how top universities admit students in general. The holistic review process means there is no single thing an admissions office looks for, no silver bullet to guarantee your acceptance. What this podcast does contain, however, are a few select nuggets of information that are interesting, and that help clarify how Yale’s admissions works and prioritizes students.
They are not going to give away all of their secrets, and they are going to portray themselves in the best light, but if you have specific questions about how Yale looks at different aspects of the application, or how officers review applications, then this can be quite useful.
What We Can Learn from the Yale Admissions Podcast
Now, the podcast is not quite as prolific as some others out there; these conversations aren’t nearly as long as those by some other podcasts. They do, however, put out a fair bit of material, more than may be easy for students to review all of. To help you out, we’re going to go over some of the top insights we’ve gleaned from this podcast, both in what’s said, and in what isn’t.
Yale’s Essay Questions
Yale asks a lot of essay questions, and students often have a hard time answering these. Many students feel like these are designed specifically to trip them up, but this isn’t the case. Indeed, the opposite is true:
And one of the most common reasons why we edit or we drop a question is because we found that a lot of applicants didn’t quite pick up on what we were looking for or if we found that the questions sort of tend to lead to some unhelpful responses. We all kind of sit around and remember instances in the committee where we kind of groaned or said, oh, no. Like the student didn’t quite get what the application question was for. And we tend to say, that was on us. (Mark, Episode 33, Application Update 2023-2024)
Now, looking at how much students tend to struggle answering these questions, you may question the efficacy of their process, but they really do have the best intentions. That said, Yale does admit students with less than stellar essays; as they say in Episode 4. This is surprising to many students, but the moral they want to come away with is this: writing a great essay can boost your Yale application dramatically, but students with strong candidacy can get in without a stellar essay.
As for what they want to see most, that’s the same advice admissions officers always give: they want to know who you are, and what’s important to you specifically. They are reticent to give any specific advice on topics to discuss; they know that if they do, they’ll be swamped by essays of that sort, when many students could write better essays about different events.
Their final points are about wanting to hear your authentic voice. This is again commonly repeated, but remains good advice. They also give some general advice on approaching college essays, much of which we’ve written about on this very blog.
Standardized Tests
Yale has a somewhat unique test flexible policy, one that has sometimes vexed students, who aren’t certain exactly what they want (a common theme). They devoted Episode 38-40 of their podcast to elucidating this; let’s explore what we can learn from this, and what they really want from your test scores.
Much of their initial advice is generic, the kind you find on any site discussing what colleges want to see from students. The answer is simple, they want to know if you can do the work. They check your test scores and transcripts, and if it looks like you can, then great; they move on to the rest of the application. As they put it:
(…) we have no reservations in admitting students from the exact same school group with lower testing if all the other parts of their application file are compelling and interesting and we really feel like they’re the student who’s going to contribute the most to our community. Again, the testing is a simple binary question at the onset of the application review. (Jeremiah Quinlan, Episode 38 Standardized Tests – The Big Picture)
Note that this is not true of every school. They go on to clarify that Yale’s approach to test scores is not shared by all colleges, and at some schools it very much does matter whether or not your scores meet certain benchmarks. Yale, though, cares only that you show yourself to be a capable student.
This is why they switched to their more complicated test flexible policy. They saw students spend far too much time and energy fretting about higher test scores, and neglecting other aspects of the application that Yale cares about more (such as extracurriculars). The idea was that students could choose particular scores that showed them in the best light, and not need to fret about them so much anymore. This instead just created more confusion for students, but we will give them points for making the effort.
How Decisions Are Made
If you’re only going to listen to a single episode of the podcast, we recommend Episode 30. In this episode, they break down in detail the review process for applications, and how each is read and evaluated. They may not go into as much detail as you would like, but this is still an incredible resource to understand the Yale admissions process.
The most notable thing in this episode is that Yale has added a new step to their admissions review process, the first major change in how they review applications in some time, due to the number of applicants they are receiving. In this, every file is first reviewed by a senior admissions officer to make sure applicants meet Yale’s basic requirements; academic competence, command of English; the very basic fundamentals that indicate a student is capable of succeeding at Yale.
If the student doesn’t, they mark the file as such. These files do not then receive a full review by initial readers. The reason they have added this is simple:
I’ll say it very plainly. We have more uncompetitive and sort of unqualified applicants in our first-year admissions process now than we did not even all that long ago. (Mark, Episode 30: Reading Reloaded)
As more and more students apply to these schools, there is less self-selection in the pools. This means that more students who do not have a realistic shot at acceptance apply. Now, these students may still be bright and talented, but they have not indicated that in their applications, and with 50,000 files to review, Yale needs to streamline somewhere.
The students who do meet basic competence requirements are then reviewed in full by their area readers. This actually helps these students, as it means area readers are more willing to dive deep into these applications, looking for reasons to admit a student. They do not give some specific ratings, but primarily rely on notes on what a student has done and accomplished:
So I actually went back and found a tagline for a student who applied years ago that I thought was a good example of a typical sort of thing that I might write out for a case that I’m excited to present to committee. I said, “I find his part impressively mature and reflective. This is a consistent file for a compassionate and self-aware young man who stands out as a value-added community member.” That was my in-the-moment take, and then, when I presented it to committee, I read exactly those words. (Mark, Episode 30: Reading Reloaded)
This is interesting, but means understanding exactly what makes any one applicant likely to get admitted over another difficult to parse; they even specifically go over how the numerical rankings are used, and how different reviewers use them differently. A student who scores higher than another may still be rejected, while the lower scoring one is accepted. There is no easy answer. There is no one secret to learn or trick to do that will get you admitted to Yale. They will review all that you give them, and then deliberate on how you fit into their idea of the university.
Final Thoughts
This podcast sometimes lacks the specificity we would like to see, but offers a frequently unique set of insights into how admissions officers think about and approach applications. It may be a bit much for students to listen to all of, but does contain a lot of genuinely useful general advice for college applications as a whole. If Yale is your top choice school, then we do recommend checking this podcast out. If you would prefer to read them, you can find the transcripts here; that’s where we sourced the quotes we used.
If you are nervous about your own applications, or have questions about how to improve the odds of you standing out in this byzantine process, then Ivy Scholars can help. We work with students to make them the sort of applicants that colleges love to admit, and help them tell their stories in unique and interesting ways. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more about how we can help you.
