My daughter is trying to decide whether to apply early to Harvard/Yale and whether doing so will give up her opportunity to get into Duke or Northwestern because they tend to fill up their classes on early decision. What would you do if you like all 4 schools.
Here are the stats:
From Northern California private school
4.1 GPA
2280 SAT
Model UN awards — many best delegate and outstanding delegate awards at Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth
School President
9th Grade President
Founder and President of Debate Team
School for Ethics and GLobal Leadership in DC – Second Semester Junior Year – highly selective program for young leaders in DC
Work experience at digital health companies in San Francisco
Runs a food blog with thousands of viewers
I agree with @jarrett211’s question. Your daughter first needs to figure out her ideal order of preference. Personally, I’d take Duke first among those options without any hesitation, but that’s just me. Duke has about a 25% ED acceptance rate and fills a substantial portion of their class that way. Also, I assume your daughter would be applying to Trinity, since Yale/Harvard makes no sense if she is an engineering focus.
More information is needed:
What is your daughter's UW GPA and class rank?
What subject tests does she have?
What is her curricular rigor like?
What are her interests, and what is she thinking of studying?
Your daughter seems competitive, but based on the limited information in the OP I think there’s a high chance she would
Sorry, I typed it, and it somehow didn’t show up. I’m still a bit woozy after surgery today. What I meant to write was:
“Your daughter seems competitive, but based on the limited information in the OP I think there’s a high chance she would get buried in the avalanche of highly qualified SCEA/REA applicants. I’m not sure the small chance of getting in to Harvard-Yale early is worth giving up the Duke ED advantage, especially if your daughter doesn’t have a strong reason for preferring one of those schools.”
This is really helpful.
She took all hard classes at a very hard prep school.
She is focused on entrepreneurship and global affairs.
Subject tests are math II and Spanish – 7something on each (not actually sure)
School does not rank and her unranked GPA is also a 3.95.
Sounds like your advice would be to go for Duke early and give up Harvard/Yale.
My impression is that it is much harder to get into Duke regular than early, so this might be a good strategy.
Would it change your recommendation if she thought Yale was her first choice. Would you try Yale or go for Duke early. If not admitted, then still do Yale.
There are plenty of opportunities at H-Y, to be sure; but Duke seems to have more of a structured program and an emphasis on engagement with the world - the theme of “knowledge in the service of society”. This includes things like majors in global health and global cultural studies; the DukeEngage immersive service program; an Innovation and Entrepreneurship certificate with hands-on experience; a program to help students start their own ventures; a global entrepreneurship network to foster dialogue between entrepreneurs; and a student initiative on social entrepreneurship. There is also the ability to design your own curriculum through Program II:
Penn and Dartmouth are two other school thats comes to mind in terms of these things, and which might be worth your daughter checking out.
I think that if your daughter is truly in love with Harvard or Yale for legitimate reasons - not infatuation with the name, but because of specific resources, programs, or features of their educational environment - then she should consider applying REA/SCEA. Otherwise, she can always apply RD to those schools. There’s no Chinese menu feature - you can’t combine Duke’s programs with Yale’s residential colleges, for example - but based on the extremely limited information you’ve provided I’m not sure why either of those schools would be a better fit. Of the two, I would consider Yale a much better fit for your daughter’s interests than Harvard.