Stanford REA vs. Brown ED

phantasmagoric
Thu, 26 May 2011 19:23:52 +0000

If you have any misgivings about being bound to attend a school that you’re accepted to ED, then you should not apply ED. Remember you don’t need to apply to any school early; early programs are for those who are certain that the school is their first choice. Applying early for any other reason is gaming the system. (Unfortunately, doing such has become so common, especially on this site, that people forget it’s disingenuous to apply early for any other reason - they see it as “wasting” your early application if you don’t apply somewhere early.)

I’m pretty certain that applying EA or RD to Stanford will not have any bearing on their consideration of your legacy status. For one, legacy status is barely a consideration at all. Contrary to popular belief, it does not help you out much; at Stanford, the overwhelming majority are rejected, and the higher acceptance rate for them would be roughly the same if they didn’t consider legacy status at all (legacies tend to be the most prepared/privileged, so their applications are generally stronger on average).

As you might know, Stanford admissions is committed to giving as many SCEA applicants a final word as possible, and deferring as few as they can. I’ve heard (and seen) that if a legacy isn’t a definite “admit” in the early round, they’re more likely to be deferred than rejected. I think that’s most likely because they are on the cusp of admission, are really qualified, etc. and Stanford genuinely does want to review their application again, rather than because Stanford wants to “let you down easy” and “courtesy defer” (something which the admissions office seems adamantly opposed to).

That said, I think you stand a pretty strong chance of being admitted to Stanford SCEA. Not only are you an abnormally strong applicant, but Stanford is undergoing an expansion of its arts programs and is recruiting more arts students, of course only the very best ones. I think you’d fall into that group.



I intend to be a humanities major, and while Stanford’s program in that area has certainly become stronger, you don’t find too many people who apply to Stanford for humanities.



I’ve found the opposite to be true. 15-20% of the students major in the humanities, so I’d say a large portion do apply to Stanford for its humanities. Stanford’s ranked in the top 5 or 10 in almost every humanities discipline (which hasn’t really changed; humanities at Stanford have been at the very top for a long time), and places in the top 5 in world rankings for humanities. So it’s not surprising that people are attracted to its humanities offerings.

Stanford also has a strong photography program under Film & Media Studies.

[url=http://art.stanford.edu/galleries-spaces/photography-labs/]Photography[/url]

Fun fact: Doug Osheroff, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, teaches an introductory seminar on photography for freshmen (a class capped at 15 students).



Good – then Stanford is easy.



That’s very false; just being a nationally ranked athlete does not make admission to Stanford easy. The acceptance rate for such athletes is roughly the same as the overall admission rate.