<p>You are focusing on a mere anecdote. I have yet to see “borderline” applicants, who would not have gotten in RD but got an admissions “boost” from applying SCEA. You can say that I do not have all parts of my friends’ applications at hand, but I can tell whether their stats/ECs/background are weaker than other Princeton students simply because I have lived and worked with them for so long and have learned so much about their life story. Now, in your theory, at least one of them should have been a “borderline” applicant (by your definition of the term and by fact of mere statistics). The fact is that none are - all are exceptionally talented students who were admitted because of their academic excellence, which justifies the higher SCEA ratings. But, again, none of them were your “borderline” applicant (by your definition of the term) who were admitted in spite of their weakness, by a perceived “boost” attained via SCEA. Perhaps this is due to a skewed sample, but then again, there are dozens. </p>
<p>Again, you can cite the numbers all day, but what is the substance of a 2% chance of admission versus a 19% chance? Is that a difference that translates materially? I’ll tell you - again, I have met Princeton kids who had low GPA/SAT and “weak” ECs, with no conceivable hooks or background advantages, each of whom is living his/her dream at Princeton. Your numbers would have said they were extremely unlikely to get in but there are a large number of them who are attending Princeton in spite of - rather, in defiance of - your beloved numbers. </p>
<p>Again, with your name dropping. Have you offered your own critical defense of the data besides the fact that two professors happened to decide to publish it? Plato and Aristotle, considered much greater authorities in their day than two college professors, wrote several works describing a geocentric model of the universe. Now, if everybody decided to cite Plato and Aristotle based upon their perceived authority, we wouldn’t be getting anywhere, would we? That also makes for a very boring paper - yes, I think that the Earth is the center of the world because the authorities say so. I don’t think that the NSA is monitoring us because they say they’re not. I don’t think the North Koreans are building nukes because they say they aren’t. </p>
<p>Finally - you didn’t actually read that study, did you? First, the study is about how early decision round 2 applicants perform less well academically than their round 1 and RD peers. And I quote:
Hold on, it gets better:
And second, the study was done for Hamilton College, with a very different applicant pool and a very different admissions policy. I don’t recall Princeton having two rounds of early action, but then again, who am I to know? I really don’t see how that applies. Try again.</p>