Admission is competitive, based mainly on the score in city-wide or province-wide examinations as well as talent in science, music, sports, and the arts.

Brownell Gage, Warren Seabury, Lawrence Thurston, and Arthur Williams, all graduates of Yale College in the 1890s, founded Yale-in-China, and brought the mission to Changsha between 1901 and 1905.

In 1938, Yali students and faculty moved to Yuanling in western Hunan to avoid bombing in Changsha during the Japanese invasion of China.

In 1951, Dr. Rugh was brought to the new gym on the Yali campus in a school-wide meeting to condemn "American Capitalist Invaders"; he returned to America via Hong Kong soon after.

BJ Elder published a book in 2003 titled The Oriole's Song - An American Girlhood in Wartime China (see cited sources below), describing her childhood in Changsha on the Yali campus and the various trips she made back to China in the decades following the family's forced departure.

In 1980, Yali, known at the time still as Changsha Number Five middle School, returned to operations from a whole decade of chaos.

With the new "reform and opening-up" policy instituted by Deng Xiaoping, more freedom to connect with the outside world was realized.

Yali alumni from the first half of the 20th century started working between Changsha and New Haven, seeking to re-establish the Yale-China connection.

The school has received provincial and national recognitions for its high quality education to young minds.

Yali graduates score among the highest in China's college entrance examinations and are accepted by the country's finest universities.

Courses are also offered in computer science, graphic design, mechanics and robotics, research-oriented seminars, and others.

The school has also started a research-oriented seminar program for students to carry out group projects in the social sciences, the arts, and community engagement.

The school also started a partnership with China's Central Conservatory of Music, in which a Yali Center for the Arts was established between the two institutions located in Nanya.