SCEA vs National Match

LoremIpsum
Sat, 24 Sep 2011 12:49:41 +0000

Being a European citizen, especially being born there and speaking the language is a definite plus because it brings diversity to the campus. Schools boast about those statistics all the time.



Of course diversity is a plus; the question is whether your particular diversity is scarce relative to the demand for it. I would say the supply of Europeans educated well enough to succeed at an Ivy League school is much greater than the supply of well-educated URMs who grew up attending poor inner-city American schools.

In any case, any advantage you would have as a European would apply equally whether you chose Harvard SCEA or the first Questbridge Match round. Why not go with your first choice first? SCEA at Harvard should give you an edge. By contrast, the vast majority of QB candidates get placed during the regular decision round – if you were to get into MIT/Yale/Princeton/Stanford during the match round, you would certainly also get in during the RD round.

And at these schools, the RD financial aid package would be pretty much the same. My son’s out-of-pocket cost was $3000 a year, based on some work-study and a summer job. Effectively, this amounts to free tuition and free room and board, with the $3000 covering books, travel expenses, and minor personal out-of-pocket costs.