I need some help deciding my SCEA/ED School. My top two choices right now are Princeton (#1) and Northwestern. I want to decide which school I should apply to ED/SCEA so I can start on the supplements, and really put my time into just my favorite. However I understand that admissions is extremely competitive to these schools, so i'm trying to gauge my chances at each school if I applied early versus regular. DOes Princeton offer a significant boost to an applicant who applies SCEA, I understand that Northwestern does as evidenced by their 3x higher admit rate during the ED round, and I would not want to apply early to Princeton if my chances are the same as regular decision. I ask this because at my tour of Yale they plainly stated there is no boost for SCEA only reason the admit rate is higher is because of athlete recruiting, and legacies. So if Princeton is the same I would not want to waste my early shot with them.
** So in essence, does Princeton SCEA offer an average joe schmoe applicant a boost to their acceptance chances or not, if yes then what are my SCEA vs RA chances at Princeton, and chances for ED vs RA at Northwestern.
**
** Objective: **
[] SAT I (breakdown): 800M 780CR 660W 8E, also I took the June test, so will retake in Oct for hopefully 2350+
[] ACT: 34C 35R 35M 35S 32E 8E
[] SAT II: Have not taken yet, will take Math 2, Chem in November expecting 800 on both.
[] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.788U/W 4.515W
[] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 9/866W 24/866UW
[] AP (place score in parenthesis): Calc BC 5, Chem 5, Physics 1 5, Macro 5, US Gov 4, Lang 3
[] Senior Year Course Load: AP Bio, AP Physics C, APUSH, AP Lit, AP German, Calc 3, Linear Algebra, Diffeq
[] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): WYSE 2015 Chemistry State 4th place, National German Exam Gold AP Scholar with distinction, (recieved 226 on psat and my state is normally like 215 so probably NMSF, and NMF)
** Subjective: **
[] Extracurricular (place leadership in parenthesis):
[] Scholastic Bowl Varsity Captain, WYSE Team, Science Club, Math Team, German Club, German Honor Society (having elections soon will probably be president)
[] Job/Work Experience: Seasonal Worker at Bestbuy 2014/2015
[] Volunteer/Community service: Only about 20 hours so far, will get about 100 before applying.
[] Summer Activities: Summer Research Internship at Notre Dame with grad students in chem department. Also taking CS50x on edx, and will take a finance course on there too.
[] Essays: Will spend a lot of time on them but Im not a great writer.
[] Teacher Recommendation: Will get one from physics teacher will probably be 8/10 (had him for physics 1 and have him for physics c), and German teacher probably 10/10(have had him all four years of German)
[] Counselor Rec: Large school but am giving her lots of time, have already talked to her about might turn out good might be just ok
[] Additional Rec: PI at Notre Dame internship
** Other **
[] State (if domestic applicant): IL
[] School Type: Large (4000 students) Public
[] Ethnicity: White/Polish
[] Gender: Male
[] Income Bracket: 80K
[] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First Generation
[] Major: Applying as Chemical or Materials Engineering
With 50-55 openings per year Penn’s M&T is very selective. Applying ED to Penn should give you an advantage over RD candidates. Penn selects more than 1/2 its class during ED. If you apply to M&T you can specify a backup major if you’re not accepted.
My advice is to apply ED/EA to to your top choice which appears to be Princeton EA. You have competive stats for all the programs you’re considering. The programs are all very selective. There is no way of predicting if you’d get in so apply to your top choice.
Well thats kind of the point, if I have twice the chances at northwestern I would rather apply there ED so I can possibly get into one of my top choices. Otherwise I might apply SCEA at Princeton get deffered and have wasted my chance at ED for a school that really values it, ie Northwestern
It seems to me if you apply ED to Northwestern which is not your top choice that you might spend the rest of your life wondering “what if I applied to Princeton?”. So the question is are your willing to forego any chance of Princeton or Penn M&T to make Northwestern more of a sure thing? Nobody on this board should presume to answer this question for you. But personally I don’t like the idea of applying ED unless it is to a school is a person’s absolute top choice.
I would be totally satisfied going to Northwestern I visited and loved it. However you are right that if I did get in I might wonder if I did apply to Princeton. But on the flipside if I apply SCEA and get rejected, and then apply to Northwestern and get rejected, i’ll be wondering if I applied ED would I have gotten in. I guess this boils down to what are my chances for Northwestern RD.
Have you run the net price calculator on both schools and the rest of your list?
Does the rest of your list have safeties that you will certainly be admitted to, you will certainly be able to afford, and which are otherwise suitable (have your major, etc.)?
Yes to both. Princeton has a net price of 6k per year, which is very generous. Northwestern is 16k which is the upper limit of my parents affordability. All of my reach schools (Columbia, Penn, Northwestern) come out to 16k/year or so, except for Princeton and Harvard which are obviously very generous. I do prefer that Princeton is SCEA and not ED because I can still apply to other schools if I were to get to compare financial aid.
And I do have a lot of safeties. Alabama I would probably get the NMF scholarship because my psat was 226 and Illinois last year was 215, and even if something happens that I don’t get the NMF scholarship I would get a full tuition scholarship for my SAT score. And I also have Illinois (instate), Wisconsin, and Minnesota for schools i’m applying/have applied as safeties/matches.
Alabama with full tuition scholarship is probably around $15,000 per year. Have you checked what Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are likely to cost? If they are not assured to be affordable, then they are not really safeties.
You may not want to make an ED commitment to a school right at the very edge of affordability, and you may want to find other safeties that are more comfortably within your affordability range.
I also would not counsel someone to apply ED to a less than first choice school for a real or imagined acceptance boost. You also seem skittish about being locked into a single school early on in the process. Princeton is clearly your first choice, doesn’t lock you into attending and offers the best financial aid, that’s your early application school.
If Writing is truly on its way out, and schools do not consider it, you may want to reconsider retaking the SAT. CR+M is 1580. I wouldn’t retake that score. Check the schools’ CDS to see if they consider the Writing section.
The only reason I am retaking is because I took the faulty June administration, so the Oct test is free for me. If nothing else I will get four free score reports and save $50 sending my scores to schools. And on Princeton’s CDS it lists the scores for accepted applicants with the writing section so I’m assuming that they do look at the writing section of the SAT. Should I just send my ACT instead because it is in the middle 50 for all sections, or send SAT because of the very high math+cr?
The Alabama COA says that after a full tuition scholarship it should be around 8k per year.
@Ksty1098 , I always tell people to go ED only on their first choice. Glad to see you’re making the decision to apply to Princeton. Hope it turns out well for you. And even if you get rejected, I’m sure there will be other schools there for you. Best if luck! And do tell us how it went.
