Yale Submitted

I went to Yale last Spring for a visit. Really nice atmosphere and beautiful campus in the spring time. Very friendly too. I have to say that I am dropping Yale from my list of potential schools though. I am interested in investment management and just looking at Cornell's offerings tonight class-wise I find them much more extensive in this area. Therefore no Yale for me... Hopefully that will pump up your chances!

Well I think its going to take a miracle for me to get in considering they are cutting their class size by about 20-30 students this year. A lot of schools are doing this so it should be a really competitve year. Unfortunately my profile isnt perfect so I will have a lot of convincing to do in order to get accepted to any school.

Interesting... Mine is not perfect either. My quant score is not at all where I want it to be. I am using the CFA L1 passage to try to tell them they shouldnt worry about that. But I am also a very convincing writer and have a good undergrad GPA from a good school. I like Cornell though as I might be able to secure a bit more financing with my profile at Cornell than a place like Yale where I would be more on the edge in terms of admission. Plus for investment management Cornell has good offerings and while maybe not a Chicago in some peoples minds, it still seems like a school that will get me the jobs I want.

Well I think you have definitely thought about this a lot - no matter where you go I am sure you will get a great education and that goes for everyone on this board. I am actually working on my Cornell app right now - the only thing I dont love about the school is its location. Outside of that it has some fantastic programs that fit what I am looking for - in terms of entrepreneurship its one of the best. I am going for round 2 there. I also have an uncle who attended the law school and he has a lot of great things to say about the Cornell experience.

Personally, I am talking my way out of a low undergrad GPA (Boston University alumni - if there is anyone else on here they could probably relate to the grading system at the school, I also didnt focus like I should have). My GMAT is also right on the edge of the middle 80% range so I have my work cut out for me. As far as work experience, I have that one down cold. I am also taking additional coursework so hopefully that will help as well.

Source of this information? Specifically that other schools are cutting class size?

I know for a fact from the admissions officers at both Yale and Darden that class sizes this year will be smaller then last year. The application pool last year must have been very large and they accepted more then usual, as a resuly more students actually ended up attending so class sizes for 2006 were a little bloated.

Yale wants to cut class size down to allow professors to work on the new curriculum.

As far as other schools outside of these two I dont know - but it is definitely possible others had similar experiences with last years class size.

I have heard the same things about Virginia and Yale regarding class size.

At the Darden reception, the Dean told us that Darden admitted its largest class ever last year, and was actually about 30-35 students over their target. They went ahead and admitted them all (as opposed to Tuck a few years ago that offered some people money to defer for a year), but I think they will be back down to their target size this year.

I understand that the change at Yale is due to their change in curriculum. They used to have 4 sections of 55 students each, but because they are currently revising their curriculum (I gathered that this meant there were fewer professors available and/or qualified to teach the new curriculum) they now have 3 sections of 65 students each. By my count, that's a net loss of 25 seats. I believe the change is temporary and will revert back whenever the new curriculum is implemented.

I haven't heard anything from other schools. I got the impression that Chicago, Wharton and Kellogg would be unchanged. Duke mentioned that they increased their class size by 25% about 2 years ago and would be maintaining that size.

Yale will definitely be much harder to be admitted this year. After cutting their class size to accommodate for the new curriculum, Yale experienced an unprecedented increase in applications/yield. As the result, I believe many students were offered a deferred submission for a 50% discount on their first year tuition. Exact figure of how many students took this offer was not released, but it is safe to assume 10-30 seats are already reserved for admits from last year.

There is, ultimately, nothing we could do. By submitting in the first round, we have already maximized our chances.