<p>I agree with entomom. I think that if you are a marginal candidate you should not ‘waste’ your early application opportunity on Yale. My impression (based on looking at the ‘results’ threads) is that Yale is far more difficult to get into in the SCEA round than RD. On the other hand if you are even slightly competitive for Yale you would be very competitive for EA at UChicago, Georgetown and other less competitive schools. If you are willing to do ED then you could consider Columbia, Penn, Brown, etc, which are all easier to get into ED than RD.</p>