Inside the Yale Admissions Office
Inside the Yale Admissions Office
Admissions Officers Hannah and Mark share the complex and dynamic work happening inside the Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions. The podcast gives firsthand accounts of how officers read applications, make decisions within the Admissions Committee, and collaborate with other offices and resource centers. Yale College receives more than 35,000 applications annually for a first-year class of 1,550 students. Hannah and Mark give an inside look into the strategies and processes that enable admissions officers to attract promising applicants from around the world, consider every applicant through a whole-person review process, and build a class filled with strong students from an amazingly diverse collection of backgrounds. Recorded inside the Office of Undergraduate Admissions on Hillhouse Avenue, this new podcast pulls back the curtain to reveal some of Yale’s most fascinating and rewarding work.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 12, 2024 • 35min
Application Update 2024-2025
At the start of the new admissions cycle, Karen joins Hannah and Mark for the third annual preview of the questions that will appear on Yale’s first-year application. The admissions officers discuss the types of responses that are more and less effective and what admissions officers hope to learn about applicants when reading their responses. This episode is an update to Episode 6: Essays: The Little Stuff, originally released in summer 2020.
Apr 25, 2024 • 53min
Bulldog Days Live 2024
Recently admitted students in the Class of 2028 join Hannah and Mark for the second annual Bulldog Days Live episode, recorded during Yale’s three-day campus preview program. Admissions officers Becky and Julian discuss how admissions officers enjoy meeting admitted students in person and the conversations they have with Bulldog Days attendees. Three admitted students reflect on navigating the process of selecting a college after receiving admissions offers, and the hosts share dozens of pearls of wisdom submitted by audience members to help students navigate the process of making a final college decision.
Feb 22, 2024 • 13min
Bonus Episode: Standardized Tests and the Baseball Analogy
To help listeners better understand what test scores can and can’t say about a student’s relative strengths, Mark outlines an analogy he devised that connects standardized tests to his favorite sport. Dean Quinlan joins to discuss how applicants often overemphasize testing, the many ways applicants can show academic preparedness, and famous New York Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey.
Feb 22, 2024 • 39min
Standardized Tests: How We Got Here
Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, gives a data-driven institutional perspective. He walks through Yale’s shift from required tests to test-optional to test-flexible. Conversations cover how applicant pools changed, research linking scores to college performance, and practical advice on submitting scores under the new policy.
Feb 22, 2024 • 26min
Standardized Tests: The Details
Yale's new test-flexible policy for admissions discussed in detail. Insights on score submission and tricky scenarios. Detailed overview of future standardized test requirements and super scoring methods. How Yale approaches standardized testing and the score selection process. Navigating standardized test scores in college admissions and aligning application content with intended major. Yale's innovative approach to admissions beyond standardized test scores.
Feb 22, 2024 • 25min
Standardized Tests: The Big Picture
Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid at Yale, explains the role of standardized tests in assessing academic readiness. He talks about using scores as an academic baseline, how context and score ranges matter, and practical advice for anxious applicants. Short myth-busting segments clarify what small score differences do and do not mean.
Nov 1, 2023 • 52min
Mythbusters Live – EA Deadline Edition
With just days to go before Yale’s early action deadline, Hannah, Mark, and special guest Moira hosted a special live virtual event for students preparing their Yale applications. The officers answered questions about standardized testing, the activities list, essays, and short answer questions, while busting a few myths and dispelling rumors about the selection process.
Oct 18, 2023 • 26min
What’s the Deal With That Supreme Court Case?
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two cases about how admissions offices can consider an applicant’s race and ethnicity. Hannah and Mark explain the basics of the ruling and how it affects the work of the admissions office. Special guest Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid, joins to share his insights on why the ruling should not affect how applicants and educators approach the college application process, as well as the details of Yale’s strategy for responding to the ruling to ensure that Yale’s student body remains diverse along all dimensions. The ruling changed the court’s interpretation of the law, but it did not change Yale’s values.
Sep 25, 2023 • 51min
Mythbusters Live
In September 2023 Hannah and Mark hosted a special live virtual event for high school seniors. Responding to questions submitted by audience members, the hosts addressed common questions about essays, activities, intended majors, and the review process. They also shared their advice for navigating the application process during senior year.
Aug 29, 2023 • 23min
AI and College Essays: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer
The sudden availability of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have raised new questions about authorship, plagiarism, and fairness in college admissions. Hannah and Mark discuss why they think these tools are unlikely to help applicants gain an advantage in Yale’s selection process and why questions about generative-AI are the wrong starting point for understanding how to compose an effective college essay. LLMs can appear very knowledgeable, but they are inevitably ignorant of the foundation of any successful application: the unique person applying.
