<p>I’ve actually read that the early action pool is in fact weaker than the overall pool of applicants to a university like Stanford. The super outstanding student’s don’t usually worry as much about applying early and they want to apply to more of the Ivies at a time to see all their options when they get in. Also, the book I read says that low income students tend not to apply early action because they want to compare financial aid packets from multiple schools. Plus the early action acceptance rate is more than double or sometimes triple that of the regular decision. When you see that 7% acceptance rate, the SCEA is like 16% and the RD is only like 5-6%. Yes, that sounds very scary to me too. If you really want to go there, apply SCEA, because I know I am. And hey, it can’t hurt. You should also read into the SCEA rules. It only states you can’t apply to other private schools EA (so you can public schools) and also applicable scholarships. For example, I know Notre Dame has a scholarship that you can apply for only if you get in EA, so that would be one of those situations you could apply EA to another school.</p>