<p>There are plenty of matters that are not released to the public–like acceptance rates and stats by race, for example. That doesn’t mean that university hasn’t scrutinized it; I’m sure Stanford’s admissions office has looked at the empirical data and came to its conclusions logically, with data. That would probably be why multiple admissions officers have stated that early pools attract stronger applicants on the whole. ;)</p>
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</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s so weird about it. Stanford knows it’s the top choice of a great many students. It doesn’t care. Considering that Stanford rejects the vast majority of SCEA applicants, it’s obvious that “Stanford is my first choice” doesn’t matter much, if at all. And “applicant interest” is not a consideration, as per the Common Data Set.</p>
<p>I think Harvard’s reversal of position from a few years ago on EA is instructive on what university admission offices can not notice even if they do, as they surely all do, internal studies of the admission process. That’s why I still think it would be interesting to have another group of independent researchers take a current (2008 application year) look at the admission process.</p>
<p>"would be to give independent researchers access to the admission files. " Yeah, as if that will happen soon, lol!
“it was found that applying early provided an advantage to applicants, which was sometimes a very substantial advantage at certain colleges”
And when that book with it’s findings from over 10 years ago came out, it helped to set off a flood of early applications to many colleges, for many wrong reasons. Before, it was a “secret” that applying early was an advantage. Now, many of those same colleges have abandoned Early applications for various reasons- it isn’t fair to less privileged applicants,etc, but my gut says that perhaps a reason is they don’t need to encourage any more applicants, early or not. The [old] secret is out and “gaming” the admissions odds doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to.</p>
<p>Well it depends on what a strong interest in going to Stanford means. If you mean by traveling, speaking to the admissions officers, or stating it is your top choice…that isn’t going to help. But I’m pretty sure there was an essay that asked why Stanford was a good fit for us, which is a good way of showing how interested/serious a kid is on attending Stanford. Thus, in my opinion, if you are truly interested in Stanford (and for specific reasons) it certainly won’t hurt you in the application process, and would likely help. But applying EA, in and of itself, in my opinion, does not help. In fact, as others have said here, EA is probably equal to or maybe a little harder than RD. Despite the acceptance rate being higher for EA than RD, EA applicants are more qualified than RD.</p>
<p>"This is Stanford’s statement on the matter, but, again, where is the independently verifiable evidence that this is really what is going on? "</p>
<p>Sometimes you just have to take what is stated by a college as it’s policy- particularily if it is a private institution. Very, very few times do parents get a chance to find out the REAL reason little Jonnie didn’t get accepted, and usually the only ones that do have donated $$$ to the school. The rest of us are just going to have to speculate about how admissions decisions are made.</p>
<p>So far, the only colleges that I am aware of that are out of the early program business recently are Harvard (formerly SCEA), Princeton (formerly ED), and Virginia. </p>
<p>Whether those colleges will start a trend or not depends on their analysis, and the analysis of the other colleges trying to attract the same students, of how well their experiment in the immediate past admission season worked.</p>
<p>If you are a “reach applicant” as you say then I would STRONGLY advise against applying SCEA. First off, this is just my opinion, but as a reach I’m fairly sure applying SCEA would do very little to improve your odds. Try to do you research and be honest with yourself about your chances.</p>
<p>Choosing where to apply early is very important. Don’t throw away your chance to apply early if you do not think you have a strong chance (my personal cutoff would be around 40-50%) of getting in, even if its your dream school. It would be a horrible waste if you looked back at the end of the admissions cycle and realized that you could have gotten into your second or third choice school by applying early, but instead passed up on the oppurtunity for a longshot at your dream school.</p>
<p>There are schools where applying early will significantly boost your odds (ex: Duke, Columbia FU) and you should seek out schools like that to apply early to maximize the oppurtunity. There are enough of them out there that at least one should fit your goals and preferences nicely.</p>
<p>^^ does that evidence provide anything about Stanford specifically? If not, we can’t make any conclusions based on that, either.</p>
<p>I disagree with cornell.2012; apply early to your first-choice school, and don’t look back thinking you could’ve gotten in early at your second- or third-choice schools. It’s not a waste if the school really was your first-choice and you gave it your all. (Because if you didn’t get into Stanford SCEA, you wouldn’t RD–and if you might, Stanford would defer you.)</p>
<p>That’s actually my advice to the OP and to most similarly situated students. The student I know best has no clear first choice, and thus has no particular reason to apply SCEA (much less ED) anywhere, but may have warrant to apply nonbinding EA to one or more colleges.</p>
<p>if i had the chance to repeat the whole process, i would not do scea again. you won’t really know how the scea round goes unless you yourself go through it. honestly, unless you are a legacy (it does actually help), a urm, and athlete, or someone super special (like you starred in your own hit sitcom) you probably won’t get in scea. plus, if you don’t get in, it’s disheartening and this may show up in the applications you fill out after that for other schools. if stanford is your first choice, and you are a little under the norm, don’t apply scea. in fact, i wouldn’t recommend doing it at all unless you fit into one of the aforementioned categories.</p>
<p>First of all, thanks for all the great advice! I was never expecting so much.
Anyway, here’s my view after reading all these posts.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I took the advice of looking up my stats to see if they fit the 75% percentile, however I couldn’t find any of that info. It does not say the cutoff on Stanford’s class profile for 2007 and college board only has the middle 50%. I do fit into the middle 50% comfortably.</p></li>
<li><p>My SAT score won’t be the problem. I’m anticipating 2150+. The REAL PROBLEM is my GPA. It’s a 3.6 UW/ 4.5 W and I am an INTERNATIONAL STUDENT (I’m pretty awful at math having almost failed a class). I was in the top 7% at my old school which had close to 1000 students in my class. I am currently doing the International Baccalaureate and I am being predicted at a final score of 39 out of 45. </p></li>
<li><p>As for my extracurriculars, from having researched around here and comparing them to other international students, I’d say mine are excellent and will probably be the strongest point in my application. (Hope I didn’t sound too rude there haha…not my intention.)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I’m applying to 4 other schools all without financial aid, however, Stanford is my only option in the early round because it is non-binding, while the other schools all have ED. I just thought I’d go for it, but I need to keep my options open for financial aid since I am also applying to British uni’s which are significantly cheaper.</p>
<p>After having read the comments, I’m leaning towards NOT applying EA and just doing RD. We’ll see though…</p>
<p>Thanks for the input and I really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Hm. Last year I was debating whether or not to SCEA to Stanford or ED to Penn. I liked Stanford better than Penn but I thought my chances at Penn were going to be far greater than at Stanford. Even though I was pretty set on applying ED to Penn, my parents intervened and said what kyledavid said, that, you don’t want to look back. I thought this was pretty bad advice, but I still took it, knowing I’d blame them if everything went wrong. I got in SCEA and was so happy about Stanford I decided to not even write my app to Penn. However, for me the jury is still out on whether or not you should apply SCEA to your top choice when it’s a long reach. You don’t want to look back on not getting into your top choice (saying What If?), but you also don’t want to be stuck with your fifth when you could get your second or third. It really depends on the individual. It worked out excellently for me, but being perfectly honest, I really don’t think you’ll get in Early at Stanford. But I thought the same for myself, so take that with a grain of salt. Though this advice could be all null and void if your applying for financial aid. I don’t think most schools will accept an ED (not EA, ED) application from an international applying for financial aid. You’d have to do your own research as to which schools will.</p>
<p>Well, if Stanford is your only option in the early round, I’d say go for it. Unless you think your app can get a lot better by Regular decision time (your GPA increases), there’s no reason not to apply early. Early isn’t harder than regular.</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford admits the lowest percentage of internationals of all the highly selective colleges. (6% on average). Stats of admitted internationals tend to be higher on average than domestic applicants.</li>
<li>Stanford is NOT need blind to internationals.<br></li>
<li>Your SATs are fairly low compared to the unhooked Stanford admitted student and well below the 2300 75% percentile.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think applying SCEA to Stanford does have an atvantage, but not in an obvious way. Yes, you are likely to find that the competition for EA is just as competitive, if not more so, than for RD. However, the real benefit lies in knowing that there are less people to compete with. </p>
<p>The common complaint I often see is that really qualified applicants don’t get accepted simply because there are too many applicants, not necessarily stronger applicants though. So if you are a competitive applicant and you are thinking of applying to Stanford, having to beat out 5,000 kids is much less daunting than having to beat out 20,000.</p>
<p>Sorry to derail this a bit, but I really would love to know if I should go SCEA or regular decision.</p>
<p>I have 2350 with a 1550 on the two core sections of the SAT, and a 4.0 UW GPA. I should also have a book finished (might, not certain) by the time the application would be sent in.</p>
<p>Based on what I could tell, my SAT score place me above 75% and thus I should, but I thought jumping to conclusions without asking the specific question seemed like a poor idea.</p>
<p>Income is something between 60 and 80K a year, I think on the high end, so I would be applying for financial aid. I thought Stanford was need blind with domestic applicants, so this shouldn’t be an issue. I wasn’t sure though.</p>
I got in SCEA and was so happy about Stanford I decided to not even write my app to Penn. However, for me the jury is still out on whether or not you should apply SCEA to your top choice when it’s a long reach. You don’t want to look back on not getting into your top choice (saying What If?), but you also don’t want to be stuck with your fifth when you could get your second or third. It really depends on the individual. It worked out excellently for me, but being perfectly honest, I really don’t think you’ll get in Early at Stanford. But I thought the same for myself, so take that with a grain of salt. Though this advice could be all null and void if your applying for financial aid. I don’t think most schools will accept an ED (not EA, ED) application from an international applying for financial aid. You’d have to do your own research as to which schools will.</p>