<p>Seriously you have a great chance of getting into any school in the nation. I have a urm friend with similar ec’s and gpa but a much lower SAT (2100 area) and he is now attending Cornell.</p>
<p>not that good, but you’re URM which makes it better</p>
<p>Early DECISION isn’t good if you need fin aid. Yale and Stanford are single choice early action. It would give you a very slight advantage, but would cut down on the application work load if you did get in. </p>
<p>If you are low income, you might want to check out Questbridge too.</p>
<p>Yale and Stanford offer SCEA, which is a nonbinding early action program. Early Decision, by contrast, is binding, and is usually not recommended for those who need financial aid as it prevents the applicant from comparing finaid offers. However, finaid offers between early and regular decision rounds rarely differ. Ideally, a SCEA acceptance will allow you to avoid having to complete endless RD apps and still offers you the luxury of comparing finaid offers in the spring.</p>
<p>The caveat? Under SCEA, you can only apply early to that particular school and your state school.</p>
<p>My top choice is UPenn and then Harvard. Should I apply ED?</p>
<p>first of all, sorry to hear about your father. It seems like, in spite of everything, you have achieved amazing things. congrats! </p>
<p>Honestly, I think you have a great chance at all of these schools! </p>
<p>URM + Great Stats + Decent ECs + Good Recs + Good Essay Material will get you in. </p>
<p>If Penn is your top choice go ahead and apply ED…the admissions rates are 2x the rates for RD…Penn is pretty generous on fin aid. Even though its ED, if the fin aid doesnt work for you then you can back out of the ED agreement. </p>
<p>For Penn ED, on the essays make sure that you really get across your interest in why you want to go to Penn…be emotional make them know that you REALLY want to be there. For the other essays, I would write about perservering after your father’s death as 1. it will help the adcoms understand some of the AP scores and 2. it will just show your character and the type of person your are.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should let affordability be a concern with whether or not to apply ED. You’re looking at the Ivy League schools, and they all have incredible financial aid. For instance here are some facts about UPenn finaid since you mentioned it is your top choice:</p>
<p>[A</a> Look at the Facts, Comparing Penn’s Cost](<a href=“http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-look-at-the-facts.htm]A”>http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-look-at-the-facts.htm)</p>
<p>thanks. I’ve been looking at these “elite” schools and I can’t really understand why so many people like princeton or harvard or yale or whatever so much more than the other top ten schools. i was a freshman and i went on some special tour thing around the east coast and i didnt even hear of any of these colleges until I got there and I really didn’t see that much of a difference between penn or yale or whatever, and I really really liked penn. it just seemed nice. i dont really care about the name. it’s not like i’m getting undereducated at one college.</p>
<p>“it’s not like i’m getting undereducated at one college.”</p>
<p>It’s not all about education; it’s about who goes there. If you don’t understand the significance of HYP versus schools like Cornell or Stanford, then choose what floats your boat. You’ll probably recognize the difference after you graduate (depending on what you want to do with your life and where you live…)</p>
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<p>Very sorry to hear that. I think you should briefly add that in in the additional information section, just in case.</p>
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<p>Your mindset demonstrates what’s wrong in our country’s education system. You do not attend a college for the sake of establishing job connections and skills. Yes, college does do that and obviously there are students who choose that more laborious, and somewhat banal, route. However, college shouldn’t be about preparing for a job. It should be about learning for the sake of learning about yourself, other people of similar interests, and the broader aspect of our existence on the planet. You can slave away at your p-sets and orgo notes, but when it comes down to it, you really need to learn to appreciate the education you’re receiving. College is, from what I’ve heard, the best four years of many people’s lives… and for good reason. You learn new material in new ways from all sorts of different people. You mature beyond expectation. You gain skills and knowledge that will inevitably help you in the long run, whether it be in some corporate office in the City or at the dinner table with your family. The people at Penn or Cornell or whatever “inferior” institution you are insinuating are of equal competence, intellect, and excellence as those at Harvard or Yale. Honestly, our current application process to “superior” colleges is a game that requires luck beyond belief. If you truly think that the smallest difference in an applicant is any testament to his or her capability, you truly are a small-minded individual. There is more to life than having a job. There is more to life than worrying about paychecks or connections or other materialistic things as such. And if this is all you’re focused on, then colleges will see right through your pre-professional mind. They want thinkers, learners, educators, who are curious to discover and innovate. My father’s death has taught me that life is simple. You can make it meaningful without restriction. Appreciate what you do without worry. Do what you want. Make use of an education that is intended to extend beyond the cocktail party snobbery.</p>
<p>^Beautifully said. Supplementary essay?? Lol, but all i can say is that I would want you at my college. Good Luck with everything.</p>
<p>As for jobs- well, many students of middle class families who just miss out on financial aid, do indeed have to worry about employment to pay off huge loans of 200K plus interest. They do not have the luxury of learning for learning’s sake with the prospect of fat monthly loan bills arriving after commencement. Nor are they able to afford the semesters abroad and unpaid internships like the wealthy student or subsidized financial aid student.</p>
<p>Over half the students at H & P receive financial aid, so I don’t think anyone can really believe the majority at the Ivies are “the cocktail crowd”.</p>
<p>“Early DECISION isn’t good if you need fin aid.”</p>
<p>ED is fine if you need FA and you have that one dream school above all others (if the dream school doesn’t offer you enough FA, you sadly say thanks but no thanks, and apply RD elsewhere). Otherwise you should compare FA offers from various schools. I think you don’t need ED to boost your chances. :)</p>
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<p>What I typed was three sentences; what you interpreted from it is entirely in your head, and misses the mark entirely. First off, since when is a career–pejoratively known as a ‘job’ to you–incompatible with meaning, fulfillment, and happiness? Depending on your career choice, you face certain institutional realities for which you are unprepared as an undergraduate (and especially as someone just now applying to be one). If you conflate job stresses with paychecks or “materialistic things,” and if you think connections aren’t instrumental for most in creating a fulfilling life (regardless of where you go to school), you’re hopelessly naive. You can make life meaningful without restriction, yes. You can go off and volunteer in India for the rest of your life and live a meaningful life. Poising yourself above cocktail party snobbery, however–a necessity for career advancement for many–is putting arbitrary restrictions on what can be meaningful, and on what career paths are open to you. Looking at things instrumentally is not wrong; on the contrary, it is how human beings understand happiness and how they typically attain it. You might be self-enlightened about the importance of knowledge and education, but I’m not what’s wrong with education; I’m just describing it. </p>
<p>You’ve demonstrated that you are very clearly of a pre-professional (even anti-professional) mindset. I said that if you can’t appreciate what HYP can do for you, then do what floats your boat. Note again: if you cannot <em>appreciate</em> what it can do for you, you will not benefit from it, and won’t care if you do. I didn’t graduate HYP, but as a professional policy wonk, I know what it means. </p>
<p>Also, no education is worth 200k worth of debt. If you would ever encourage someone to go into debt to get a nice liberal arts education at some small school because everything is just about education and nothing else, then you’re what’s actually wrong with education in America. Count yourself lucky that the institutions you so cavalierly reject for being facilitators of privilege and materialism also admit you and half their other students precisely because you don’t fit those norms.</p>
<p>back to the OP . . .</p>
<p>You look good enough to be competitive . . . but there are lot of folks with great stats who get turned down at the HYPed schools</p>
<p>e.g., Brown turns down 3/4 of the Valedictorians, 3/4 of applicants with a 800 on critical reading and 80% of those with an 800 in Math</p>
<p>like a friend said: sufficient but not defintive </p>
<p>so GO FOR IT . . . but love thy safeties :-)</p>
<p>If Penn is your first choice then by all means apply ED and don’t worry about financial aid. If you need financial aid you’ll get a great package. I don’t think you meantioned your EFC but whatever it is Penn will meet the gap (and Harvard is likely to go beyond it) and without loans. From the Penn website: “As part of that commitment, students who qualified for need-based aid will no longer have loans included as part of their financial aid package beginning in Fall 2009. This policy will extend to all families who qualify for need-based aid.”</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>