It’s 4 PM, Dec. 14, and Shaunak Pandey is nervous. His laptop is open, his browser is refreshed, and the long awaited “status update” has appeared. He takes a deep breath and clicks “view update.” Suddenly his browser fills with black, before being promptly replaced with one word: congratulations.
Pandey is in.
Senior Shaunak Pandey was one out of the 7,856 candidates who applied to be a part of Yale University’s class of 2028. He was also one of the 709 candidates who were accepted as a part of early action application. This is the lowest early-action acceptance rate in Yale’s history.
“The whole day everybody knew Yale was coming out,” Pandey said. “All my friends were coming up to me. Everyone was like ‘Ooh.’ So the tension was building.”
Although results were revealed on Dec. 14 2023, the application process began months prior, with Pandey applying for restrictive early action, meaning he could only apply to one college through early action. Though Yale utilizes Common Application, which simplifies the process, it also requires school-specific questions.
“They ask the types of questions that [really] make you think,” Pandey said. “The last question [was] ‘what inspires you,’ so really deep questions.”
Not only were the Yale questions more complex, such as “What is something about you that is not included anywhere else in your application,” but they were also extremely brief. While other colleges like Stanford will have word limits of around 50 words, Yale caps short-answer questions at 35.
“I started the college app[lication] process late, but I had ideas of what I wanted to write about before I started my Yale application,” Pandey said. “Nothing was too difficult to draft, but just overall, all of them [are] kind of difficult to [just] get out. That was my struggle. Really, it was just making it say what I wanted it to say.”
For Pandey, the majority of his application was a solo process, with help from his Mother and editing assistance on his essays. However, paid college coaches and counselors have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly for those shooting for Ivy League schools such as Yale.
“I think you’re really the only person who can get your ideas out properly. But I [also] don’t think you should go into the college application [process] in silo,” Pandey said. “So having your mom, your friends; just having more people read it, is helpful. The support system for sure.”
Though Yale requires undergraduates to be undeclared for their freshman year, Pandey expressed some of his areas of interest in his application. Specifically, economics and environmental science.
“In terms of environmental science, I think that was kind of my main interest. What gave me my edge on the application was my environmental science research,” Pandey said. “I’m passionate about [it], and I think we definitely need to get closer to th[ose] zero carbon environmental sustainability goals.”
Beginning two years ago, Pandey has completed research at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on carbon sequestration and porous media; culminating in a very complex process involving saline reservoirs, supercomputers and fluid models that ultimately won best in the state of Texas.
“The bottom of the [application] pyramid is your grades, so extracurriculars will get you through those doors, but you have to actually get those doors open,” Pandey said. “But for extracurriculars, I guess the word for it is a spike. Find a spike in what you want to do–what sets you different from everybody else.”
In addition to his research at the University of Texas at Austin, Pandey competed in the International Science Fair, won awards from major organizations like NASA and National Geographic, and published a research paper on fluid flow at the pore scale. But he doesn’t devote all of his time to research.
“I kind of divided my time into research and piano. I think as of right now [piano] is more of a personal hobby,” Pandey said. “I think it’s a good way to de-stress. Particularly last year–junior year–when I [was] dealing with science fair and AP Classes. It’s just a nice way to chill out for a bit.”
Although Pandey doesn’t plan on pursuing piano in his academic career at Yale, he has still achieved success in the field, having performed at Carnegie Hall twice.
“In terms of opportunities, [Yale] opens up connections which [can] really help in the job market,” Pandey said. “And just more research opportunities, there’s a lot of undergrad funding programs to create startups and [pursue] interests.”