<p>Hanna, do the reject any blatant applicants who are just sending an app ‘for the heck of it,’ even though they don’t really stand a chance because of GPA or scores/etc?</p>
<p>I think this will help some of us in the long run. Please take a look at my stuff on the post Chances of EA at Harvard.</p>
<p>Gordon I’m certain they reject apps like that.</p>
<p>collegeboard.com says that EA for Harvard and Princeton are unrestrictive…I’m so confused.</p>
<p>@alwaysgraceful
Unrestrictive means that they don’t make you accept the admission if you get in (ED is restrictive, EA isn’t)
SCEA means that you can only apply early to that one place. If you’re accepted, you can still apply to other places. You just can’t apply early.</p>
<p>@Doinks, that’s what I thought too but then for Yale it said restricted Early Action…and everyone knows Yale has SCEA, so I thought that unrestricted means you could apply to other schools as well.</p>
<p>CB isn’t the most reliable source on these matters.</p>
<p>^ +1
10char</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford will all be SCEA next year.
See: [Early</a> action returns | Harvard Gazette](<a href=“http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/02/early-action-returns/]Early”>Early action returns – Harvard Gazette)</p>
<p>“As in the past, students can apply under the single-choice, early-action program by Nov. 1 and will be notified by Dec. 15, at which point students completing financial aid applications will receive notice of their awards. Regular decision will continue to operate as usual, with applications due on Jan. 1 and notification on April 1. All students, whether admitted under early action or regular decision, will have until May 1 to decide whether to attend.”</p>
<p>Also see: <a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/</a></p>
<p>@GordonGekko, yes, they reject some very unrealistic applicants in the EA round, just not as many as they should IMHO. Most of their competitor schools send a lot more rejections in December. I see both sides of the argument, but I think Harvard ought to set more kids straight in the EA round.</p>
<p>Will applying EA to either Harvard/Princeton actually help one’s chances? (Assuming he/she is a qualified applicant.) A counselor told me that qualified applicants will be applying early anyway so it won’t make much of a difference and would probably be better to apply to non-SC EA schools, and I would like to know how true that is.</p>
<p>It should not make any difference. The qualifications of EA and RA admits under the old system were the same.</p>
<p>There is uncertainty about how much advantage you would gain by applying for EA, but you will absolutely face better odds than what it would be for RA. There were roughly 32k applications for Harvard in 2015. If the breakdown between EA and RA next year is like what it is for Stanford, you are looking at 6k EA applications and 26k RA applications. No one knows how many Harvard will admit from the EA pool, hence the uncertainty about the advantage of EA. Assiming 600 for EA (a rate of 10%, which is probably a rather conservative guess), 1550 spots remain for the 26k RA applicants, resulting a RA admission rate of 5.9%. Numbers from 2015 show a much bigger advantage for EA across Ivies. For example, the EA and RA admission rates for Yale are 14.5 and 5.7. So, the bottom line is you should apply for EA if you are truly interested in Harvard.</p>
<p>^You don’t have enough information to draw that conclusion. The value of EA would only reflect the RA vs. EA admit rate if the populations of the RA and EA pools were the same. But they aren’t. The EA pool is self selected and includes a greater proportion of applicants who are more likely to be admitted than in the RA pool.</p>
<p>^Yale’s website details why EA rates are higher, as well as offering good advice to candidates on applying early to Yale, or any school for that matter. See:[Frequently</a> Asked Questions - Single-Choice Early Action | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action]Frequently”>Single-Choice Early Action | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>Is there an advantage to applying Single-Choice Early Action to Yale?</p>
<p>Applying Single-Choice Early Action does not increase the likelihood of being admitted to Yale. Historically, the rate of admission among early applicants has been higher than the overall admission rate because many of our strongest candidates, from a wide range of backgrounds and interests, apply early. We therefore offer this advice: Apply for Single-Choice Early Action if you want to receive a decision in mid-December and you are confident of the credentials you will be presenting to the admissions committee early in your senior year. An Early Action applicant must meet the same criteria for admission as an applicant in the regular pool. A thoughtful college search and a careful assessment of your readiness to present a strong application as early as November 1, are key. Candidates who need more time, for whatever reason, will be better served by our Regular Decision process.</p>
<p>The applicant pool for Harvard is always self selected. A really competitive EA applicant will unlikely be rejected outright, so there is little downside for applying. Furthermore, Harvard filled half of the class each year during the EA round historically and the EA admission rate hovered between 15-25%. The benefit of EA for a competitive applicant is obvious.</p>
<p>
There is also little upside since that applicant will likely be deferred.
That correlation does not imply causation should be more obvious.</p>
<p>(wants more people to discuss this so im going to rebump this thread)</p>
<p>I definitely think Harvard EA is going to have a higher acceptance rate because the pool is very self-selective. I go to a pretty competitive high school, and most of my friends in the top 1% are taking their chances at a school they could reasonably get into (rank 3 and 7, for example are doing MIT EA, because our school has a reputation for getting many kids into MIT). </p>
<p>The only other people I know of that are doing Harvard EA are pretty confident.
- Started a non-profit in the 8th grade and has also won international olympiad awards/published in chemistry journals, 36 ACT, 800/800/800 rank 1 or so
- Internationally recognized artist and regularly receives commissions to do works (I swear, this person is like the reincarnation of Michelangelo), something like 2380 SAT, rank ~3</p>
<p>So, yeah I think Harvard EA is going to be full of wunderkinds. But then again, this prediction is based off of a sampling size of about seven people.</p>
<p>Honestly, I have been thinking about Harvard’s SCEA a lot since I myself want to try to apply to some of the Ivies in the years to come. What I got was that there is not much to lose for me when I actually try SCEA either at Harvard or any other school in question. The reasons are (even though this is utterly personal, it may come in handy to consider it) that:
1, one can never really be sure about his acceptance even if he has perfect scores in all the tests etc…
2, unless you are not a tiny bit self-critical, you cannot be absolutely incompetent when applying to an Ivy - you have to at least THINK you have something to offer - or you’re just wasting your time and money and thus are not much of a competition for the others (who are serious about the application)…
3, since the deciding process is considered to be random by many, you don’t really have anything to lose if you are sure about your competence, give great effort to the application and believe in yourself - the worst thing that could happen is that you could get rejected… and then, you would apply somewhere else…</p>
<p>If everything goes well, you can have a GREAT Christmas with the acceptance letter in your hands when sitting at the table on 24th! :)</p>
<p>Because of that all, I believe that SCEA is deffinitely worth a shot no matter the rates.</p>