<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2380 (780CR, 800M, 800W, 12E)
[</em>] SAT II: 800 Math IIC; taking US History and Chem
[<em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 (most rigorous courseload)
[</em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10% (school only does deciles)
[<em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): taking US History, Chem, BC Calc, Stats
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C, AP Lit, AP Span Lang, some non-AP social studies class, Math at Stanford University
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): CA State Tournament Qualifier in Policy Debate, USAJMO Qualifier, 4th Place at So Cal Championship in Black Belt Sparring, NMSF (probable 240 PSAT), Silver Presidents Award in Community Service
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Policy Debate (9/10/11/12, President of the Speech and Debate Team, Captain of the Policy Debate Team, CA State Tournament Qualifier, finalist at District Tournament and first alternate to Nationals, Top Speaker at SCU Invitational, organized and taught at summer speech and debate camp fundraiser), Math Club (9/10/11/12, USA Junior Mathematical Olympiad Qualifier Score: 27, 3 x AIME Qualifier highest score: 9, National Winning Team 4x4 Competition, National 3rd Place Team Mandelbrot Team Play Competition, 2nd Place Open Division in Santa Clara Valley Regional Competition, Mandelbrot Competition West/International Region Individual Leader-board), Karate (since 4th grade, Black Belt, 4th Place in Black Belt Sparring at So Cal Grand Championship), Cross Country (9/10/12), Track (10/12)
[<em>] Volunteer/Community service: Silver Presidents Award in Community Service for working at a monthly fundraiser booksale, phone banking for the 2008 Obama Campaign, teaching debate to novices, and a lot of miscellaneous service activities
[</em>] Summer Activities: Debate camps (9/10/11), worked/organized summer speech and debate camp fundraiser (10/11, raised $30,000)
[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): CA (Bay Area)
[</em>] School Type: very competitive Public
[<em>] Ethnicity: Algerian-American
[</em>] Gender: M
[/ul]</p>
<p>On the whole, you seem pretty qualified. Which APs have you taken already, unless all of those will be taken in May and the future? Now it’s just a matter of taking two or three of your most important and distinguishing experiences and writing stellar essays about them. Because while Yale will definitely see that you’re a really busy person, there has to be some underlying reasons why you’re doing everything, and not just to catch a college’s attention. This could just be my perspective, though. Congratulations on all of your accomplishments, and good luck! Hope to see you there :)</p>
<p>Those are all the AP’s I’ve taken, though that’s as much as anyone else in my class. Do you have advice on whether or not to apply Yale SCEA? Thanks!</p>
<p>The only reason I would dissuade someone from applying SCEA (and assuming Yale is their #1 choice) would be if he/she needed the first semester of Senior year grades to boost the overall profile or, if there are extenuating circumstances that prevent you from assembling a top notch application by november. Otherwise, I’d highly recommend it. I met three SCEA admts last night at our area’s reception for Yale admits. Their Decembers were very calm!</p>
<p>Yale and Princeton are my top two choices right now (I’m not sure which tops the other), so I’d like to apply SCEA to one of the two. Am I correct in reasoning that the influx of applicants to Harvard’s and Princeton’s newly reinstated early programs (who would have otherwise applied Yale or Stanford SCEA) will make it easier to get into Yale SCEA?</p>
<p>I would not assume that it will be easier to get into Yale SCEA now that H and P are opening similar programs. If the number of super-qualified applicants decreases, they will offer fewer December acceptances. Yale knows that it can fill its class in the RD round several times over with fully qualified top-notch applicants.</p>
<p>Has Yale put out the policy about reducing the number of admits in EA if they receive fewer apps? I have seen at least 3 or 4 other people planning to apply to Yale because they believe the same as OP that there will be less competition.</p>
<p>I suspect the pool of EDs will be reduced to accommodate HYPS SCEA numbers rather than people going away from Yale and Stanford in large numbers.</p>
<p>As usual, you’re a relatively strong applicant, but then again application to top universities is so uncertain that it’s really hard to tell. Participate in more hardcore ECAs (other Olympiads or the sort), awesome essays in CommonApp definitely helps too :)</p>
<p>There is no such policy that I would be privy to but the admit rate for deferred SCEA applicants is significantly higher than the RD admit rate and they are deferring 50% of the SCEA pool. I would understand this to mean that only superstars are admitted SCEA since even stronger candidates than the RD pool are pushed to an April decision date and “waste” their EA application. It does not appear that applying SCEA to Yale is an admissions “strategy” that improves admissions success. I am less familiar with Stanford’s program but others have suggested that their SCEA program policies reduce your chance of successful admission. I would expect Yale’s SCEA pool to go down when shared with H & P and suspect the number of admits will go down too.</p>
<p>Yale’s SCEA program probably works best for the superstar applicant who does not need financial aid and will end the craziness of the admissions process with an early admit to Yale and not file other applications. Certainly the number of students who apply SCEA falls outside this narrow group but this is where I see it being most helpful. If you just want to have a competitive early acceptance to ease your mind, you are better off applying EA to other schools with a higher than 13% EA admit rate.</p>
<p>I do not know those specific numbers as they are not reported in missives from the admissions office to either the general public or alumni interviewers. Legacy preference at Yale and peer institutions is real but increasingly limited. No doubt a first generation URM with strong statistics will fare better with admissions than a legacy applicant since more is expected of the latter. Other alumni interviewers and I are humbled by the incredible kids we write glowing admissions reports on who don’t get accepted.</p>