I’m the only one at my school who is applying to an Ivy League so a lot of pressure is on me from my school to get accepted early. Plus I can’t afford to apply to 10 schools regular decision ~:>
@Princeton2020 If you don’t mind me asking, what are your standardized test scores? I think if they are strong you will have a very good chance at acceptance.
Personally, I don’t have the test scores (2020 SAT, 800 Math 2, 780 chem…did bad on SAT as a close family member had a serious injury hence I to take care of him/her so I had no time to study and can’t redo the exam). My marks are good (percentage wise, last year I had a 97.75% and 98.8% so far this year), but extra curriculars are not so great (no president or initiator of any club, learned programming, did stock trading, coached sailing, tutored, crew leader at habitat for humanity) as I had a difficult domestic situation that prevented me from getting out and required me to stay home and take care of almost everything at home. Hopefully the holistic approach will do me good ~:>
@PantherLair My stats test-wise are subpar, but they are on my one of my threads if you want to see!
I told a close friend… (so I could share excitement with someone). Over the course of a month, more and more people found out lol.
All started with a, “I only told…”
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@pnguon That’s why I haven’t even told my best friend. I only told a handful of people that I was even applying. For one person I told that the results were coming out this week and instantly regret it, but I don’t think she heard me. Thank goodness. The less people that know, the better for me.
~:> lol I keep forgetting the chicken
Ugh I wasn’t going to tell anyone the decision date, but my mother FORCED me to send her the conformation email of the date so now my whole family and friends know 
~:>
When people ask me (including my parents) I try to be as vague as possible and say things like, “Oh yeah… it’s coming out sometime near the end of the week…”
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i can’t wait this long
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I passed by my counselor today and took the chance to ask if they asked for first quarter grades and she said no… bad sign? I know it’s probably going to be a deferral and I thinking of all my weaknesses/lack of strengths… like the only thing I have going in my favor that not everyone else has is a pretty nice visual arts supplement (painting) and an alumni teacher rec… will that help me even if just a little??
My dad already thinks I was deferred so it’ll be a pleasant surprise if by some miracle i get it!!
@Mel1997 My parents also think I’ve been deferred. Heh. At this point I think I have been too. Ah well…
I sent in my first quarter grades without them asking or anything, and today I was emailed by the FA office that everything’s complete. I’m just trying not to think about it till Wednesday. My plan is to get froyo while I’m checking so at least when I get my deferral I can eat froyo to comfort myself. ~:>
Damn I didn’t send in my first quarter grades and I don’t think they asked my councillor to and they are pretty good (100% ap calculus 100% ap chem 98% economics)…hopefully it’s because I’m an international from Canada
Edit: I also forgot to send in my ap human geography score! (5)(Canadian schools are backwards and let you do ap tests in grade 12 courses only, but I was able to do it last year). Thankfully I have the FA confirmation email as a place to put my optimism on 
Chicken chicken chicken ~:> ~:> ~:> ~:>
@cinnamonwings - did you request that confirmation of FA information, or was it the coveted unrequested confirmation email?
I haven’t told anyone except for my sister, and only one other friend found out because she looked up the date. My parents don’t even know- and I think that’s for the best. I can just casually tell them I was deferred/rejected (or do something nice if that isn’t the outcome…).
@Nvidea123: I love the idea of getting something to eat! I might go out for tacos after (I love tacos omg) regardless of what the decision is. ~:>
Take this for what you will, I did a new statistical analysis for the heck of it. The TL;DR of it is that if you’re not legacy or a recruited athlete, the chances are around 12% for SCEA, more than double the RD decision (plus you get a shot there too!).
First, the numbers I’ll be using. We know that this year, Princeton received 4,164 applications for the SCEA program. We know that last year, Princeton admitted 767 applicants to the class of 2019 during the SCEA period. I will be using this as the baseline, since Princeton is likely shooting for a target number of students, not a target acceptance rate. Also note that this is significantly higher than the previous few years, where the number was closer to 700. Also it could be decided to increase the number of admissions due to the 10% increase in applicants, but I will use the 767 number, a compromise between a return to the norms and a corresponding increase this year.
Next, the intangible numbers: what we don’t know, but can infer. The Ivy League caps recruited athletes at 230 per class, but that’s a maximum, not a target. In another CC thread someone mentioned the number 225, which I used in my calculations before I knew about the 230 hard cap. It could be less than both of those numbers. Next, The Daily Princetonian reported that 15% of accepted students from last year’s EA round were legacy. 767*.15 gives us 115 legacy applicants.
I don’t know a whole lot about athletic admissions, but to be conservative about the probability we’re concerned in (I’d rather spit out an underestimate for unhooked applicants than an overestimate) I simply assumed 100% admission - that being, everyone applying as a recruited athlete got in, and all recruited athlete spots were filled during SCEA. That allows us to subtract 225 from both the open slots and the applicant pool. Legacy and non-athletes make up 3939 students competing for 542 open spots in the class of 2020. Combined, these groups have a 13.7% chance of admission.
Next, we have legacy students. 115 legacy students (approximately) will fill the class, giving us 427 slots for unhooked applicants. The uncertainty here, is what percentage of legacy students are admitted? Though it surely is far from 100%, such a scenario would give an 11.1% chance to the unhooked applicants: 3824 students to fill 427 openings. Princeton reports that 30% of legacy students are admitted. That lets us extrapolate that approximately 383 applicants are coming in with legacy status, dropping the unhooked pool to 3555 members. To fill the 427 remaining slots, that gives a probability of 12.0%.
Not sure if that’s of interest to anyone else, but it was to me. No matter what anyone says about EA being “no different” than RD, the number of unhooked applicants admitted during EA is absolutely twice as high as the OVERALL number applying RD, which probably also includes some more legacies and such. Also I don’t believe for a second that the applicant pool is stronger in SCEA than RD. Sure some people might take SCEA more seriously, but in RD you have to deal with all the people who applied to Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, etc… The point is, we’re already at an advantage vs. the people who waited, the admissions rate isn’t as scary as it once was (though it isn’t as nice as the 20% overall) and these estimates could change if they took less athletes, or a lower percentage of legacy students, or any number of other factors.
@CautiousOptimist . It looks pretty reasonable number. Cheer ~:> And we know the rd rate is about 5% or less.
Btw, does anybody know how much the governor’s school (state government paid camp program) or university camp (paid by university) help admission?
@CautiousOptimist haha thanks for sharing your calculations! ~:>
best of luck to everyone on/reading this thread! ~:> ~:> ~:>
@CautiousOptimist what percentage are URMs in the remaining pool? ~:>
Hey, first time popping in to the thread!
Unfortunately, everyone at my school seems to know about the SCEA date… I guess they all really want to see if I get in or not, which I probably won’t. :>