Yale SCEA vs Yale RD for international student?

MariaScott
Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:09:55 +0000

I’m an international student from a country that (as my counsellor told me the other day) hasn’t been represented at Yale in the last 25 years. I’m not sure if I should apply SCEA or RD next year - my grades, extracurriculars, volunteer work, internships, etc. are all definitely Yale material, but I’m not extremely unique in any way.

On one hand, SCEA would be good, because Yale is my dream university and it would mean less stress if I did get in, but I’m just scared that I won’t stand out enough. With RD, the applicant pool might be slightly less qualified (and also less legacy kids), but the problem is that the other Ivy League applicants who applied early to UPENN or Columbia will apply to Yale RD so I’ll have to compete against them! Another factor is that Yale makes around 1/3 of its acceptances in the SCEA around only around 1,400 offers are then made for the approx. 20,000 people applying RD.

So what should I do in 2016?