Since his application will be read together with other Yale applicants from that HS, that creates tough competition right out of the gate. And how will the counselor recommendations (which may matter more than the GPA decimal points) differ among these impressive applicants, will they have their designated Yale favorites? I would probably take the Dean’s advice and ED to Brown, with the legacy being a “feather on the scale.”
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I would expect a guidance counselor at an academically rigorous private school that regularly sends its graduates to T20 schools to be “in the know” about which schools would be the best matches for its students. Does this influence how the guidance counselor crafts the recommendation (e.g. if Student A is a better fit than Student B for Yale, when both students are equally eager to attend).
Unless S27 is set on attending either Brown or Yale & not considering any other choices, he may want to consider applying RD to both. There could be other T20 schools, that could be a better fit for S27, if he’s willing to consider them.
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I would recommend SCEA to Yale and RD to Brown if Yale is clearly preferred over Brown. I don’t believe there is a real ED advantage. From Brown’s website:
“Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.”
Also I have not seen Brown state that to get a legacy bump, you have to apply ED.
Bare ED admit rates are deceptive. Most athletes and special donor cases are admitted in the ED round. ED rounds also tend to have the most qualified pool of applicants.
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If the counselor fills in the subjective rank section (ratings section at the bottom of page 2 in the form linked below), perhaps they are hinting that the student may be put in a lower rank grouping than others at the school.
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Brown. He’ll grow to love it!
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They still may be using Naviance, which is just GPA and scores plotted with admissions results. The next step would be to drill down on the accepts and see if the counselor knows the information about that student.
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Perhaps the counselor is, in a roundabout way, saying that the student does not meet the benchmarks for stats among applicants to Yale from that high school.
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GPA 4.3, 1560 SAT. Meets any benchmark I would think. In our experience high school college counselors do not understand the impact of music/arts supplements, especially when the accomplishments are outside of school. A supplement will include resume for music/art/theater/writing etc., a recording or portfolio, and letters of reference relevant to the music/art. Letters can be especially helpful.
We have had family members at both Harvard and Brown and preferred Brown. Yale has a lot of distribution requirements and Brown doesn’t have any. Quite different, so it should be easy enough to choose one to prioritize. We found Brown to be rigorous but not competitive.
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My d25 was in a similar situation from a similar type of school. Her GPA and scores were plenty high but historically she was not the type of kid that Yale took from her school - those kids usually had a “T” in her school’s parlance next to their name - so there was something really unusual about them - either a sports or music profile that was just on another level or with some strong connection to Yale or famous parents or something. She applied SCEA anyway b/c it was her first choice. She was rejected which was a bit of a hit - we fully expected deferral and then rejection but didn’t really expect straight up rejection. Anyway, she didn’t end up doing ED2 anywhere and ended up at another Ivy where, like you, she had legacy connection and is very happy there. [She did also really like Rice and almost ended up there.]
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I believe Brown when they say there is no ED advantage.
So I would SCEA Yale. I would also reflect on why I preferred Yale, and maybe pick some other colleges that were more similar to Yale than Brown. Like to me, although they have some overlapping virtues, there are enough differences that I would think maybe some other research universities or even LACs could be more similar.
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