<p>From the Stanford admissions site:</p>
<p>“3 Possible Restrictive Early Action Admission Decisions:
Applicant is admitted and has until May 1 to respond to the admission offer.
Applicant is denied and can not reapply for Regular Decision admission in the same year.
Applicant is deferred to the Regular Decision round, where he/she will receive a final decision by April 1.
Stanford’s philosophy is to make final decisions whenever possible, so the vast majority of Restrictive Early Action applicants receive one of the first two decisions noted above.”</p>
<p>Note the last sentence! While I do not know the statistics, my impression was that last year Yale seemed to defer many more SCEA applicants than Stanford. On a positive note, I also had the impression those who were deferred at Stanford did well in the regular admission pool.</p>