Higher education in the United States is considered the best in the world. By the beginning of the new century, a highly effective education system, famous for its practical orientation, flexibility, and freedom of choice, was formed in the country. Universities in the United States of America are renowned for their high-quality teaching and the wide range of opportunities they offer to educators. Moreover, there is a wide variety of institutions to pursue higher education. This is more than 6,000 public, private, commercial, non-profit, and religious institutions of higher education, which enroll over 17.5 million students – both Americans and citizens of other countries. Prestigious educational institutions attract not only students but also research scientists with their technical base, financial security, and the latest technologies. The federal government annually allocates $ 32 billion to higher education institutions for research projects, which are distributed on a competitive basis.
The Ivy League universities are among the elite academic institutions in the United States. It is a grouping of eight oldest private educational institutions located in seven states in the northeastern United States. Seven of them were founded before the independence of the United States. Ivy universities are characterized by a high level of qualification of tutors, carefully designed masters and doctoral programs based on the research work of students. They include a large number of research centers, museums, periodicals, libraries, theatres, a developed communications network, as well as transport infrastructure. Private universities hold huge monetary assets, which enables them to attract the best faculty and provide students with a comfortable learning experience and ample opportunities.
Yale University is part of the Ivy League. Below we will talk about the education system in this educational institution, as well as about the peculiarities of writing Yale supplemental essays.
Education System at Yale University
Yale University is one of the oldest universities in New England. It includes 12 divisions. This is Yale College, which offers a four-year program of study and the opportunity to obtain a bachelor’s degree; The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with 24 master’s programs and 53 PhD programs; 10 professional schools created to train specialists in various fields, in particular, in the field of medicine, business, law, environmental protection.
The University conducts a huge research work. Thus, taking into account the increasing influence of the globalization of the world economy, the Center for Applied Linguistic Research, the Center for Research on Globalization Problems, the International Financial Center is developing programs for international scientific and technical cooperation. Today, the university has an endowment capital of $ 19.4 billion, the second-largest fund among academic institutions. Today Yale University is actively developing and at the same time strengthening its achievements. Approximately $ 500 million is invested in improving the activities of educational centers and laboratories, as well as faculties of exact sciences. In the next few years, the leaders plan to spend the same amount on expanding the material base of research in the area of biotechnology and medicine.
Modern Yale has approximately 11,500 students: 5,300 bachelor students and 6,100 postgraduates and masters. The number of international students studying at Yale is 8%. Financial aid to students is approximately $ 120 million. Yale graduates are famous and successful. 49 Nobel Prize winners in economics, physics, chemistry, and medicine have been associated with the university as students, faculty, or staff. Among the graduates of this educational institution are five presidents, 19 justices of the US Supreme Court, and hundreds of prominent business and cultural figures.
Specificity of Creating Effective Yale Supplemental Essays
Due to the wide autonomy of higher education institutions in the United States, each college and university sets student selection criteria at its discretion. For example, Yale University puts forward the following criteria for the selection of students:
- Availability of a certificate confirming mastery of the school program;
- The presence of a transcript – a document that shows which courses the student has completed;
- Results of standardized tests (ACT, SAT, etc.);
- Documents, certificates confirming participation in extracurricular activities;
- Availability of a document on the average score from the previous educational institution (Grade Point Average);
- Results of writing Yale supplemental essays;
- Availability of letters of recommendation from teachers or the administration of the secondary school;
- Availability of scientific, creative works;
- Availability of work experience;
- The impression made by the applicants during the introductory interview;
- Availability of documents confirming solvency.
An important prerequisite for entering university is writing effective Yale supplemental essays. During their studies, students will learn to write Yale supplemental essays regularly, but already at the initial stage, that is, at the stage of entering the educational institution, they must demonstrate their essay writing knowledge and skills.
In this regard, we want to will tell you about the specifics and give effective advice on how to complete this rather difficult task.
Definition and Characteristic Features of Yale Supplemental Essays
Yale supplemental essays are prose texts with compositional integrity and logical consistency. Yale supplemental essays should express a personal opinion on the issue, supplemented by examples from fiction, the media, and personal life experiences.
The purpose of writing Yale supplemental essays is to develop the ability of students to creatively comprehend the selected topic, express their opinion and judgment on the problem posed, arguing their position.
Tasks of writing:
- Be able to consistently and logically correctly convey your own judgment;
- Be able to argue by giving examples of the relevant topic;
- Show associative and critical thinking skills;
- Show competent spelling, punctuation, stylistic writing of the text;
- Show a variety of vocabulary.
Distinctive features of Yale supplemental essays:
- Prose text;
- Small volume;
- Subjective impressions and reflections of the author;
- Compositional integrity;
- Figurativeness and citation.
Yale supplemental essays usually interpret one particular topic and convey individual impressions, judgments, the author’s thoughts about a particular problem, event, or phenomenon. It is also important to indicate that Yale supplemental essays, as a rule, are created based on the impressions of the author, and not on any facts. Ease of presentation, emotionality, mixing of different styles of speech, etc. prevail here. Such papers focus on the spoken language, which provides an easy, confident appeal to the reader.
Mandatory Components of Yale Supplemental Essays
When writing Yale supplemental essays, you are encouraged to remember its mandatory components:
- Comprehension of the proposed topic. The writer should be based on his own vision of a particular problem, take into account his life experience, use evidence-based examples from his own life, fiction, etc.;
- Isolation of the problem. Due to the topic, the author can easily identify the problem that needs to be analyzed. It is not always necessary to take the position indicated in the theme, and you can take the opposite position while making good arguments;
- Highlighting the main idea in the form of a thesis. It is recommended to present the main idea of the paper in the form of a thesis. It can be a quote, a proverb, an author’s thought, a phraseological unit, or just an ordinary phrase that, according to the author, is best suited in a particular case;
- The argumentation of the author’s position. As it is known, any thesis needs to be supported by good arguments. That is, the writer must skillfully cite some phenomena of social life, facts, events, scientific evidence, literary works, life situations that will confirm or refute the thesis of the essay. To make the work look complete, it is enough to use two or three convincing arguments;
- Assessment of the theme and the selected problem. Yale supplemental essays, like any other type of essay, are circular in design, so at the end of the paper, it is very important to mention the main thesis again and evaluate the degree of development of the problem. To make the work original and memorable, the writer must interest the reader. This can be achieved due to the simplicity of the language, unexpected cohesion of associations, consistency of presentation of facts, free organization of the text, relevance of conclusions, etc.
Free-form Yale supplemental essays are interesting in that they allow the organization of the main components in any order.
Essay Writing Prompts
The form of organization of Yale supplemental essays is free, but in terms of structure, these papers should consist of the following components: introduction, main part, and conclusion.
Below prompts on how to write each part of Yale supplemental essays successfully:
- Try to include one or two paragraphs of several sentences in your introduction. This will be enough to maximize the reader’s attention and focus his attention on the problem under consideration. You can start with a quote or a powerful phrase. To attract attention, you can use rhetorical questions, comparative allegory, when an unexpected fact or event is associated with the topic of the essay;
- The main body of the work includes the main thesis, supported or refuted by strong arguments. The author should formulate the thesis in the form of a complete thought that he wants to convey to the reader of Yale supplemental essays. It is recommended to include words and phrases that allow you to supplement statements with the necessary information, typical for this type of text;
- The final part presents the conclusions of the author. As well as the introduction, the final part is devoted to the main problem (at the initial stage it is formed, and at the final stage, it is generalized). In conclusion, you can use words and phrases to summarize and make a summary.
Thus, writing Yale supplemental essays is a rather complicated process, but it opens up wide perspectives for you. Therefore, try to heed our advice and create it in the best possible way.