<p>I think that your chances look very good. I would not be surprised if you were accepted, if you apply SCEA. In your particular case, it seems to me that you have extremely high odds of deferral SCEA, if you are not accepted right away. </p>
<p>With regard to standardized tests, in my opinion, you have plenty of them, and high enough scores. I don’t think that SAT II scores in Latin or Literature would add much to your application.</p>
<p>I think that the decision about applying SCEA or not largely comes down to the essays, in your case. Essays do tend to improve over time. When the SCEA deadline rolls around, if you are happy with the essays that you’ve written for Stanford, including the shorter answers, then I’d suggest going ahead. If you realistically think that you have the ideas and the time to improve on them, then you could hold off till RD.</p>
<p>It’s more of a personal pride thing. I know that I’m capable of scoring in the 2350-2400 range, and I want to see if I can do it. I feel like I got robbed on the Critical Reading (usually scored 760-800 on practice tests).</p>
<p>@QuantMech</p>
<p>Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. I want to iron out at least the skeletal structures for my essays during the summer and let them ferment for a couple months. Do you know if a majority of HYPS-type applicants apply solely RD? Or do most pursue some sort of early decision/action?</p>
I didn’t read all of the game theory discussion. While interesting, I don’t think it is useful for most since most students don’t have an accurate estimate of their chance of being accepted.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it does bring up some considerations. For example, many students have very little chance being accepted to their dream school. If they have little chance of getting in, SCEA vs RD is unlikely to make difference. However, if there is a 2nd choice college where that is just a low reach for them, then applying SCEA is far more likely to have an impact. They can only apply SCEA at one school, so do they choose the low reach and risk missing out on the unlikely event of being accepted to their dream school, or do they choose their first choice and possibly miss out on the SCEA boost getting them into their low reach?</p>
<p>
They mentioned including a dummy variable for athletic recruits, as well as for race and whether the student was a legacy.</p>
<p>I figure if Stanford doesn’t work out then I’ll probably get into at least one of my choices through RD. If none of those work out, I will be one sad dude.</p>
At any specific school, most of the applicants apply RD. If you search around on the web, you can find the specific stats. For example this year at Stanford 6,103 applied SCEA out of the 38,828 total applicants, so ~16% applied SCEA and ~84% applied RD. At Harvard, it was 14% and 86%.</p>
<p>I understand that. What I’m curious about is the percentage of individual candidates who apply early to at least one institution. Is it uncommon to apply RD at every choice school? I think I would feel like I was at a disadvantage if I went solely RD.</p>