Yale ED admit, sharing my app + reflection

Demographics: - White female - New England boarding school (Andover/Exeter/Choate-tier) - Greenwich CT family - Legacy (third-gen Yale, dad's side) Intended Major: History + Political Philosophy Academics: - GPA: 4.5/5.0 on the school 5-point scale, A+ caps - SAT: 1530 - 11 APs through senior fall ECs: - Editor-in-chief, school newspaper - Varsity squash, captain senior year (NEPSAC tournament qualifier) - TASS (Telluride Association Summer Seminar) summer between junior and senior year - Founded a debate-and-discussion club around political philosophy, ~30 active members Awards: - Cum Laude Society (junior year) - TASS Telluride Scholar - NEPSAC squash all-academic team Acceptances: - Yale (ED, intended Directed Studies) Going to: Yale. Directed Studies is the freshman seminar program I built half my essays around. Happy to talk about that pitch if anyone's writing a Yale supp now. Reflection: I won't pretend the legacy didn't matter. It did. But the essays did the heavier lifting than I expected, especially the Yale supp where I wrote about something specific (the John Witt civil war legal history seminar I sat in on visiting last summer). Dad pushed me toward the legacy interview but the core of the app was mine. Happy to read essays for anyone working on history / poli sci supps.