Yale SOM 2013 - Calling All Applicants

Matriculating--this will be quite an adventure!

Ok horrible guesstimation time! I'm a little hesitant to do this since it inevitably backfires, but here goes.

If you choose to read this post, realize this is all in good fun. Numbers are taken out of thin air and are in no way tied to adcom data or any actual data for that matter. Read and/or believe everything posted here at your own risk. YMMV.

Last year we know SOM had 2,823 applications resulting in a 19% acceptance rate (536 admits) and a yield of 46% (249 people in the class of 2014).

Knowing that SOM wants to increase their class size, I'll guess 2015 will have
275 people max and might be more like 260-265 when all is said and done.

Now we've also heard that R1 saw an increase in apps from last year but we don't know by how much. I'll assume 10% since that seems reasonable to me with the increase in class size, so we'll guess SOM sees 3000-ish apps this year. We also know that last year's yield of 46% was a pretty good jump from years past (an increase of 4 percentage points I think) so we might not expect the yield to raise that much more..maybe to 47 or 48%...if it breaks 50% I think someone in adcom would through a party and then set up tents outside as classrooms (if you've been to campus, you know classrooms are pretty packed right now pre-dating new building opening in January 2014). I'd wait for class of 2016 for the yield to really jump again.

Now to more guesstimated numbers. I'm thinking R1, 2, 3 is split 40%, 50%, 10% for apps. Why is R3 so small? The timeline this year has a one month turn around between app deadline and results. That's not much time for review and interviews! So with that, based on my pick of 3k apps this year, I'm looking at about 1200/1500/300 applications per round. Based on numbers of people in the fb group (minus adcom, current students, cgsm admits that I'll put with R2 admits, and some people who are going elsewhere) I'd guess there's 100-110 people all in, deposit sent, matriculating from R1. Going by that same proportion, I'd guess adcom is looking to fill 130-140 spots in R2 and about 30 in R3/WL (caveat: I feel like adcom would maintain they don't have caps per round, they just accept people and the class size works itself out).

Based on the 19% admit rate from last year, and assuming it's similar this year... if 30% of applicants per round are invited to interview and 63% of those interviewed are admitted (the numbers worked out better for the 19% admit rate this way), combined with a yield between 45 and 50% then you're looking at 285ish admits (including cgsm) in R2 and 50-60ish in R3 and off the WL.

And for the folks who live in Excel spreadsheets, here's what all that said in a simple table:

aerien's speculation of YSOM applications (All numbers are GUESSES)
Round	Applications	Interviewed*	Admitted**	Matriculating***
1	1250 (guess of 40% of total)	370-380	230-240	100-110
2	1500 (guess of 50% of total)	445-455	280-290	130-140
3/WL	300 (guess of 10% of total)	85-95	50-60	30ish
Total	3050 (assumes 10% increase from last year)	900-920	560-590	260-280
*Assumes 30% are interviewed **Assumes ~60% of interviewed are admitted ***Assumes 45-50% yield

Hope this sort of helps or at least provides fodder for even more speculation and guesstimation!

Again this is completely speculation. I'm not connected with adcom in any way nor do I know any exact numbers from this year or any year.

This is solely based on trends from past years regarding class size, yield, and number of apps as well as the completely non=scientific assessment of Facebook group joiners. Please do not make decisions off this guesstimation and don't complain if I'm completely wrong. Please don't PM me about these back of the envelope calculations or lack thereof. You are free to do your own calculations to occupy yourself for the next week if you're waiting on R2 results or until May/summer if you're waiting on R3 or the WL.

Your acceptance rate will be 0% or 100% this year for Yale (yes, even waitlists result in yes or no by the end). No amount of random data is going to let you know whether you will get in. Sucks but it's true.

Just got back from vacation (unfortunately missed Winter Welcome) and after much contemplation am now blue as well! Looking forward to meeting everyone in April!

Glad to have potentially helped with SOM's yield Admissions should pay for me this...or at least discount my tuition a bit haha

Are you coming to Welcome Weekend? I should be there, but I think @machichi beat me to the actually booking travel part (maybe?). And where else are you deciding between?

Accepted!!!! SO incredibly excited. This was my last decision, and I am happy to say that I am done with this epic process that is MBA admissions!

FYI, the call came through on my work phone at about 1pm, and I am in Boston. Interestingly, I also got a response email this morning from Bruce to my thank you note that I had sent after my interview. He didn't say I had been admitted, but he did say he was "excited to get back with our decision later today," which I was hoping was a good sign.

Good luck to all still waiting! I know from my five decision days before how painful it can be to wait, but hopefully it ends well for everyone else! Happy long weekend

I left my job on June 15 and frankly, wish I would have left in May, (I'd originally said July 1, and the amended it to June 1, and we compromised on the 15th). The summer prior is the last chance to have no obligations, see friends and family, read for fun, and spend substantial time with your SO, for at least two years. If you want to see the world, please do so, but I prioritized giving myself a month to see friends and family, and spend one-on-one time with my friends in New York as I knew I wasn't going to be able to see them until I was back in the summer. The International Experience, and my pre-trip pretty much satisfied my travel bug for the year. A good thing to think about is what weddings will occur while you're in school, and will you be able to go? If not, then propose hanging out for an extended time over the summer as a make-up.

After having a discussion with my family over the weekend, I've decided to matriculate. Paid the deposit today. Look forward to meeting those of you going to Welcome Weekend!

I completed my video interview today. There are a few things that I will point out to those who haven't done it yet. In order to ensure fairness I will not address my question but I will discuss the process.

When you click the link it takes you to the Yale interview page.
From there it will guide you through setting up the interview software.
Basically you need to make sure your webcam works and that you have Flash installed.
You are greeted by Bruce DelMonico and he welcomes you to the process.
From there you are given the opportunity to do 2 practice questions. (I recommend doing them to get you in the right frame of mind)
They are done exactly the same as the actual questions.
You have two buttons the first time the question is asked:

Repeat Question
Think

Then a 10 second timer starts.
If you ask to repeat the question, you buy yourself a few more seconds.
You do not get the choice to repeat the question again and it will immediately begin the "Think" 10 seconds
Then the video starts recording. I had 1 min and 30 seconds to answer each of my three questions.
After you complete all three, you are asked to do a survey.

I imagine it is all pretty similar but there was a version number at the top. So, I'm guessing that means that there are several different versions with various different parameters that you could possibly get.

Good Luck Everyone!

We could debate this until the cows come home, but there's really no point...and you could've probably finished the video in that time

Look, no one here knows the exact role those videos are gonna play in the process. But you also don't know your official decision until the 16th. If I were in your shoes, I would do it because I'd want to take every step possible to show I'm interested and strengthen my candidacy. For me, this would be a no-brainer.

Just as I had pretty much given up hope and moved on, I received an interview invite today! Arrived around 1PM EST.
So stoked to be granted the opportunity to tell my interviewer how much I'd love to attend Yale.
There still remains hope! Best of luck dbalks and all, I'm certain there will be more invites on the way~

I'm blue now too!!

I was going to wait until after Winter Welcome to keep @OhDenny on his toes, but I've already decided.

It was great fun! @ohDenny and everyone else involved in the planning did a great job in organizing everything and recruiting lots of current students to join in.

There was a lot of "this is why you should come to Yale" - since I had already decided to attend, I was able to focus on this more to confirm that I made the right decision (Dean Snyder talked about the need for global leaders, the behavioral finance lecture was fascinating, small group dinners were fun, speakers were great, all of the opportunities to interact with students and faculty were terrific)! I walked away feeling even more like I had made the right decision, and a lot of people who hadn't committed one way or another said that they were leaning toward Yale.

On a more practical note, I was able to meet with someone from financial aid and get some questions answered (VERY informative and cleared up some misconceptions, although it was very specific to my personal situation). While it's not currently a concern for me, a lot of people also started the "where to live" discussion this weekend with an eye on finding places in April.

All in all, a great two days!

A similar email went out for R1 with the rather ominous subject "Round 1 Update". I feel like everyone should have received the email since its really just a reminder of when decisions will be released (hah! Like you all needed reminders...), but regardless, the email itself has no bearing on your decision.

If you're admitted you'll receive a phone call from an admissions officer. If you miss the call, they'll leave you a voicemail and followup with an email. You'll also get a generic status update email with a congratulatory letter on the status website. Good luck with the rest of the waiting and the results

Admitted! VERY excited! Did any receive news about merit scholarship money? I remember reading a while back that any scholarship money would be mentioned on the phone...

I received the call at 1:38pm in DC.

I got in!!! Just got the call!! She didn't mention anything on scholarship so I asked. No scholarship.. So if they don't mention on the call i guess we don't get the money... IRREGARDLESS, i'm VERY MUCH EXCITED!!!

Korean working in US (got call 1pm Central)

Consider keeping the Darden keychain that came in your welcome package - you can tell people it was the most expensive one you've ever purchased.