Considering 2011, her high school has not had luck with Yale beyond donor-class legacy, though they send exactly four to Harvard each year. Hope Yale takes a new approach with our school, and SCEA results from the two will be informative re. “quota”. Thank you for the info!
We have a friend balerina at Yale who I believe a Math major or statistics major. Very happy there. I believe she was a director of recent production. She is literally activating ballet at Yale.
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Above 10% doesn’t make it a safety. USC isn’t a safety unless you’re referencing South Carolina.
I hope your state isn’t NC or VA, etc but you note campuses plural - so that’s probably ok. As long as there’s one school the student is near assured at and would be happy to attend, the list works.
All that said - back to the original question - your list isn’t that long - why not apply to both ? But based on what you say is your school’s history, Harvard seems more admissible.
Good luck.
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Chicago is a very hard RD admit. Harder than Ivy’s IMO.
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How selective are those in-state university campuses? If they are UCB and UCLA, then they would not be safeties.
For USC, the one in southern California would not be a safety.
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The OP mentioned the student was from “a top private school,” and if so then it is probably not the case at all that Chicago is a harder admission than the Ivys. It may be a much easier admit, but the catch is the student might have to apply to Chicago early. This has been discussed extensively in past threads.
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I qualified that I was referring to regular decision.
Still, while acceptance is difficult, I think a WL is more probable than not. And moving off the WL coming from a top private is fairly common if you are willing to enroll. It’s just how UChicago rolls.
As for the early acceptance, EA does not help. Particularly for very strong students. They will hedge and defer, and push ED2. From the cases I’ve seen at our school, if you are not willing to ED at any point, RD is a more successful route (WL vs denial)
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Great stats. I think she has a great chance at any school. How many kids are in her grade and does her school rank? That could boost her chances if she can show consistent high performance the last 4 years. Also, what state are you from? most of the top North East schools (aka ivy leagues) accept a lot more kids from that area + CA.
They don’t rank, but tend to send right around 35% of their 100 students to the Ivies or Stanford/MIT/Chicago. Hard to predict within that group who ends up with which school, sometimes with surprising individual results. The counsellors are determinately not directing traffic. They won’t tell us how many have earlied Harvard versus Yale, for example. Downside is that students tend to apply for numerous schools if their ED or SCEA does not pan out. Quite a few apply to all eight Ivies plus S/M/Ch, which is what D25 is trying not to do…
35% is an impressive number. I am sure your D25 is going to do amazing. Good luck to her.
We’re from a slightly above average public school, and only one or two kids out of almost 600 goes to Ivies every year… 
So, we have no idea what to expect… But in your case, it looks like you have a great chance at one of the top schools, maybe even the school of your choice. Best wishes.
That is fine, because that rarely make sense as some of the schools are very different from each other. Not so much the case between Harvard and Yale and if she would like to attend one her best shot is applying to both. Like you said, it can be somewhat difficult to guess which one will work out for whom.
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For what it is worth, I think it is perfectly fine to choose just a subset of “Ivy+” colleges for your application list. That in fact is encouraged in our feederish HS, and sometimes that means kids apply to both Harvard and Yale, and sometimes neither, and sometimes only one or the other.
That said, I think that ends up being very personal. Like, whether your particular kid should apply to both, or neither, or one, or the other, is not something I think us people who don’t know your kid can really advise her on. For that matter, it is all just educated guesses anyway, and kids are often surprised about what does or does not work for them in a college once they actually get started.
So my two cents is when you are talking about schools that all seem suitable on paper, but you reasonably do not want to apply to all of them, you can in fact get pretty specific about what makes the difference. Like, some people prefer Cambridge to New Haven. Some people really like Yale’s way of doing residential colleges. Some people find a specific academic program or even just professor they find exciting. Some people perceive culture/“vibe” differences. And so on.
I think some people are afraid this is an overly casual approach, but I personally think it is suitably humble in its own way. We truly do not know in advance where we would have the best college experience. But why not go into college excited about our choice? And so whatever reasons you have to be more or less excited between equally suitable colleges are fine with me.
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Super helpful to know more about Chicago’s WL practices! Thank you. Maybe at the WL round, the legacy factor (my alma mater) would help moving the needle. If Chicago had more dance/ballet, we might have advocated for D25 to pursue EDI.
Many say they have “ED3.” They will start calling (an actual phone call) even before the May 1st deadline to as if the student will enroll. An enthusiastic “Yes!” gets them off the WL. A “I’ll definitely consider it!” Not so much. This ensures UChicago”s extremely high (higher than Harvard/MIT) yield rates.
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I would take this number with a grain of salt. Top private schools are often loaded with alums, recruitable athletes, and others who might have a leg up in admissions, so at makes the numbers top heavy, and doesn’t leave a lot of room for kids without a hook. The said, the kids from these schools do very well if the search is expanded to beyond just Ivy’s and MIT and Stanford. (As I mentioned above Chicago is a different case entirely.)
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I’m surprised by Yale instead of Princeton for a serious ballerina. My daughter thought Princeton’s ballet was much stronger. Good luck to her!
D25 SCEAed Princeton because of ballet. But who knows who will get in 
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