<p>What are some good and bad things about Stanford EA?
Are international students allowed to apply EA because they can’t to MIT and schools as such?</p>
<p>Technically the EA admission rate is higher than regular decision…I think it’s because the EA pool of students is stronger…but that’s just me. Usually people who have written books and solved world hunger apply EA…so getting stuck in-between them might make you look bad.</p>
<p>Applying early shows the college that they are you’re number one choice! And you get to find out if you are going there in Dec instead of having to wait until April…if Stan is you’re first choice I recommend applying EA… I didn’t but to be honest…if you’re not accepted EA you probably wouldn’t be accepted RD. So you can find out early and not have to stress your entire senior yr!</p>
<p>Yeah, EA acceptance is quite awesome.</p>
<p>However, Stanford is SCEA, which means you cannot apply to any other school EA or ED.</p>
<p>
That’s misleading. Most kids on this forum who apply to Stanford SCEA probably won’t apply anywhere else early, but there are [some</a> exceptions](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html]some”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html) for those who do apply to Stanford SCEA:</p>
<p>
Someone in North Carolina, for example, could apply to Stanford SCEA, University of Michigan (rolling admission) and UNC - Chapel Hill (public school in my home state under non-binding EA) without violating any rules. </p>
<p>Just throwing that out there for other people who might be in a similar situation.</p>
<p>My reasoning: If they deny you early, they would have denied you regular decision so you might as well know earlier than later.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why? Of course we can never know, but college admissions can be really arbitrary, not too mention the difference in applicant pools (EA is all the athletes I think, a lot of legacies, and a lot of over-achiever type students who really want to get into Stanford). </p>
<p>I think the same argument can be put the other way; if you are rejected regular, who knows for sure that you would have been rejected early too?</p>
<p>
That’s all fine and dandy, but by applying early and getting deferred/rejected, you have lost the opportunity to apply to other top schools early, some of which give a significant advantage to early applicants. If you weren’t accepted early, this opportunity cost may have been a tad more visible (like it was for me, although luckily things worked out).</p>
<p>I think even Stanford admissions officers have said somewhere along the line that if you get denied EA, you would have gotten denied RD. If you have a chance at admittance in RD, you get deferred. If you’re outstanding and would no doubt have been accepted RD, you’re accepted EA. Unless you could really improve your application by working on it for an extra two months, you’re not taking a big risk by applying EA.</p>
<p>^Which is what I based my post off of. I do believe that while there is an arbitrary quality to admissions, deferral can act as a fail safe that can account for what would otherwise appear completely random decisions. The “iffy” applicant isn’t outright rejected but deferred, the strongest accepted, and the definitively weaker, rejected. Besides, I do feel that this supposed difference between the early and regular pools is inflated in a sense. Despite the fact that a larger contingent of less qualified applicants applies in this period, there are probably just as many if not more highly qualified applicants who would give many an early applicant a run for their money so to speak.</p>
<p>p.s. I also forgot to add that the “best to apply early” scenario would most fit those who had Stanford as their top choice, hence the overwhelming desire to apply to it REA despite the advantages of applying ED to other schools.</p>
<p>Oh, so you can’t apply to any other colleges?</p>
<p>That sucks! If you don’t get into Stanford then you’ll just have a bad day (no chance of being accepted anywhere else).</p>
<p>That sucks that many schools have it so you can only apply to their school and if you get in you have to attend for early action/decision!
They should let you apply to three or something!</p>
<p>Hanana, that’s not how it works. Stanford has “single choice early action”, which means if you decide to apply to Stanford for early action, you can’t also apply <em>early action</em> elsewhere. It’s non-binding, however, so even if you are admitted EA, you can always apply regular decision elsewhere, and you have till May 1 to make your choice. It’s really a great option for highly qualified applicants. Yale has the same kind of early action option.</p>
<p>Best of luck to all!</p>
<p>^ Oh, so just no early action applications to other schools? I must’ve misinterpreted some of the posts here. Anyway, seems fair.</p>
<p>I actually applied to three schools “early”. I heard back from UMich Thursday, UofI Friday, and Stanford Friday. I’m pretty sure you can still do that. So there are exceptions.</p>
<p>Yeah I pretty much agree with you guys about the difference between RD and EA, but I gotta believe that there would be a couple cases where the decision would be different. I think at least the arbitrary factor of someone reading your holistic application would contribute one or two. Like I heard a rumor where an adcom rejected someone from Buffalo because he/she got food poisoning from Buffalo wings the other night. </p>
<p>-Adcoms are people.
-people can change drastically over the course of one day, let alone a few months.
-thus, adcoms’ “condition” may change over the course of a few months.
-adcoms make decisions.
-decisions are affected by the person’s “condition”.
-Therefore, decisions can change over the course of a few months.
QED?</p>
<p>lolz I’m such a weirdo.</p>
<p>As a SCEA reject, I find myself wondering how things would have turned out if I had just applied RD.</p>
<p>@l337toast, I was rejected early action, but I don’t think my app was necessarily “definitely weaker.” So far, Stanford has been my only rejection out of 11 schools (including tough ones like UChicago, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon), and the trend is making me wish I had applied regular. Of course, Stanford’s acceptance rate is quite a bit lower than all of these schools, but I’m starting to feel superstitious. Who knows.</p>
<p>I’m in same boat as KevRus. </p>
<p>Stanford has been my only rejection out of 10 schools (MIT, Chicago, Northwestern, Vanderbilt…) likely from Duke and Rice, and the trend is making me wish I had applied regular :). (Though I’d probably chose MIT anyway). </p>
<p>However, we will never know. Maybe I didn’t stand out in between all the legacies/athletes. Maybe I just wasn’t a good fit for Stanford? Who knows.</p>
<p>Do what you think is best- I really don’t know what advice to give.</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>I can tell you though, that an early rejection hurts. Not only that, but you start worrying about decisions from November 1-december 15… then it just drags on cus you worry that you won’t be good enough for all other schools.</p>
<p>I think if I had gotten all my decisions within a week of each other, a rejection wouldn’t have hurt as much :).</p>
<p>However, an early acceptance would be amazing. no stress for dec15-ever :P</p>
<p>ok so i’m really curious about the “if you get rejected by stanford early, you will get rejected/can’t apply to stanford RD” thing.</p>
<p>does that just mean i simply can’t even submit my app to stanford? say commonapp.org will block me from submitting my app?</p>
<p>or i can submit but they won’t take a look at it?</p>
<p>cuz maybe i’ll have more stuff to write about and show improvements on my app, and then i’ll apply to stanford again RD (assuming i get rejected early), will the school read my app and say, wow, he must really want to go to stanford and perhaps reconsider the possibility of accepting me?</p>
<p>snoopy, if you apply REA to Stanford and are rejected, you can’t apply again in the RD round for that same year. (This is the way it works at all colleges that have early programs, not just at Stanford.) That’s why there are so many threads on here about the various pros and cons of applying early; there is some strategy involved. Essentially, a candidate should apply REA if (1)s/he will present an extremely competitive application, with stats and other attributes at the high end of Stanford’s typical applicant pool; and (2) Stanford is his or her genuine first choice, since by choosing REA the applicant is giving up the chance to apply under other, non-restrictive early action programs. Hope that helps, and good luck.</p>
<p>mm ok thanks zenkoan. and i’m certain of your second point!
but meeting the first point is always the hardest part=(
since i’m “technically” a foreign student, standardized test isn’t as pleasant to me. hopefully my essays can cover some of my disadvantages.</p>