Yale SCEA vs Dartmouth ED

Colleges & Universities A-Z Yale University
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I have been thinking about college admissions these past few months (I’m a senior) and I still couldn’t conclude whether I should apply to Yale or Dartmouth early.
I love both universities in their own ways, but I fear I might regret not applying to Yale if I do get into Dartmouth with the ED option. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I’m even qualified for Yale and if it’s even just worth a shot. I wrote my stats below.

SAT I (breakdown): 1560 (800 M, 760 E)
SAT II: 770 M2, 790 Chem
UW GPA (out of 4.0): 3.97
Rank: N/A (Probably at least top 5%)
AP: Three 5’s and one 4
Senior Year Course Load: Rigorous

Extracurriculars:
Buddy Program with Children with Cancer Leader & Founder
Created and led an innovative garden in our school
NHS Founder & President (our school is new)
MUN Club Secretary General
Section Leader and Player of Orchestra w/ Children with Disabilities
Blog about geography

Job/Work Experience: Helped my relative with local business (selling clothes)
Volunteer/Community service: Teaching local children English every week; Helping out with the orchestra w/ children w/ disabilities by making videos etc.
Summer Activities: Travelling to different countries (9th&10th); Summer Program on Environment (11th); Lab assistant at a cancer biology lab and conducting research in an engineering lab (12th)

My Common App essay is about my family’s medical history (quite extensive and rare) and myself being a pediatric cancer survivor

Intended Major: Chemical Engineering or Biomedical Engineering
School: Int’l School in East Asia
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: F

Hooks: Cancer survivor and my family’s rare medical history (?)

*Financial matters aren’t that much of a problem

I don’t have major awards/talents and I’m an international student. And so I kind of doubt if my chances for admission at Yale are high enough for me to apply there instead of Dartmouth ED (which has a slightly higher chance).

Generally, I haven’t been to Dartmouth but from what I’ve heard, I loved its community feel but I don’t like its 5-year engineering program. I still feel as if I’ll be happy there. With regards to Yale, I loved the campus and how it’s not in the middle of nowhere like Dartmouth is (which can also be an advantage).

Should I apply to Yale SCEA (which doesn’t give any practical advantage to my admission chance) or Dartmouth ED?

Thanks in advance!

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Dartmouth is going to give you a significantly better chance ED than Yale SCEA, but what I can’t figure out is why you would choose these schools for your intended major? There are other Ivies that are much better at Biomedical Engineering (Cornell and Columbia) come to mind, outside of the Ivies, there are even better colleges for that major, so what gives?

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Thanks for the response @CU123 ! I am aware of how other colleges/ivies are stronger at my intended major than Dartmouth and Yale. However, I frankly am not 100% set on my major and so I wanted a university that wasn’t divided into College of Arts and Sciences and College of Engineering for undergrads.
I truly appreciate your response though!

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Both schools will have a certain degree of difficulty to get in. If you apply Dartmouth ED you will never know about Yale. If you apply Yale SCEA and then Dartmouth RD you will get answers to both. You might not get accepted SCEA but you don’t have to apply a second time. I am never a person that would put all eggs into one very uncertain basket and being that you are an international student- that is a wobbly basket to begin with. I would choose the path that offers the most chances overall. At least that is what I would suggest to my own kid.

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@Memmsmom Thank you for your response! Helps a lot :slight_smile:

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@chembioengi Just a suggestion, Penn is most often ranked top of the ivies for bioengineering (ahead of Columbia or Cornell @CU123), and you can pretty much automatically transfer from SEAS to CAS if you wish, or pick a second major in the other school, or simply take classes in the other school.

Outside of the ivies, places like Stanford, Duke, MIT have even strong BE programs and are also strong across the board and allow students to change majors very easily and take different classes etc.

Regarding Dartmouth vs Yale, while Dartmouth would be an easier feat, it would only be marginally easier. If you want to do Yale SCEA then go for it. You definitely have high enough stats to have a good chance.

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I would be reluctant to apply to Dartmouth ED without visiting. That is a seriously rural school especially for an international student who might feel especially isolated. Agree with the others that Dartmouth would not be my first choice for a prospective engineering major even accounting for the possibility of changing directions.

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@Penn95 Thanks so much for your suggestion! I will definitely look into Penn. I actually have visited there but didn’t really think of it as my early school till now for the same reason I wasn’t looking into Columbia and Cornell. Didn’t know that it was easy to transfer bw colleges, so my perspective might change haha.

@YaleGradandDad Yep I also kind of felt that Dartmouth was really isolated. Thank you for commenting and your advice!

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International students from Asia tend to apply to those universities located in cities. Dartmouth is, thus, less crowded among Asians relative to the other Ivies. In addition, Dartmouth is no longer need blind for international students, whereas Yale is. I think this may also give you a little bit more chance at Dartmouth than at Yale.

Dartmouth has a lovely and relatively safe campus. Yes, it is in the middle of nowhere, but it still has a decent selection of restaurants, bars, and shopping within a few minutes of walking from the campus. On the other hand, Yale has a beautiful campus and a very livable area within a few blocks of campus. But I think it is probably not a good idea for an international female student to venture too far away from its campus. So the size of the city is really not a big issue here.

Dartmouth is about 2 hours away from Boston and about 4 hours away from NYC. Yale is about 1.5 hours away from NYC and about 2 hours away from Boston. For international students from Asian where big cities have a population of at least a few millions, Dartmouth and Yale are probably somewhat equally isolated.

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@prof2dad Choosing which college to apply to is indeed very difficult :frowning: Thank you for your insight!

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@chembioengi - you wrote above that " Dartmouth and Yale are probably somewhat equally isolated." I am a first uear student at Yale who has spent time at Dartmouth visiting friends who are students there. It is a beautiful location to attend school, in addition to having many qualities associated with an excellent LAC. However, they are very different schools, and among their many differences is their geography. Dartmouth and Yale are not “equally isolated.” Yale is in the middle of a bustling, vibrant, socio-economically diverse city, while Dartmouth is nestled in the middle of a very quiet New England village. If you are very fearful of living in an American city, then you should really focus your college search on the surfeit of excellent, suburban or rural, colleges and universities in the US. it is very important that you not apply to Yale based on the misconception that it is as “isolated” as Dartmouth. It absolutely is not. Best of luck this year!

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@zoebrittany, could you comment on cultural differences between Yale and Dartmouth? My son is weighing similar dilemma as OP and we’d all love to hear any insights about how student culture differs between the two schools. The geographical and architectural differences are obvious. How does student vibe compare? Could you swap student populace from one campus to the other? Or are there obvious differences?

I hope this question doesn’t cross line into hijacking thread. This seemed of interest to OP and anybody else tracking this tread.

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Thanks, @zoebrittany!
I’m okay with living in a big city, though I’d prefer a smaller city or a suburb.
I’m also interested in the question posed by @oldschooldad. Can anybody from Yale or Dartmouth provide some insights?

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@oldschooldad and @chembioengi - I would be happy to try and answer your questions in detail from my own, inevitably biased, perspective, but I don’t think this is the right place to do that. But in general, the most significant differences between Yale and Dartmouth that everyone can agree on include the varying lengths of their semesters, the sizes of their student populations, the sizes of their academic departments and their rural vs. urban settings. i think the cultures and student bodies at the two schools are also very different. I’ve said in other posts that students who know themselves well will be able to choose a college - Dartmouth, Yale, or wherever - that will help them develop into the kind of students and individuals that they aspire to become over the course of four years.