<p>Is Stanford EA and RD the same in difficulty despite EA being higher%?</p>
<p>^That seems to be the general consensus, since the applicants in the REA pool tend to be especially well-credentialed (which is why a higher % of them are snapped up in the early round).</p>
<p>Getting in SCEA is harder than getting in RD.</p>
<p>^Not if you are at the upper end of qualification (speaking from experience here). There will, of course, be some exceptions, but I am speaking generally. Both Stanford and Yale like to try to snap up applicants who not only would be accepted in their own regular decision rounds, but would likely be accepted by peer colleges.</p>
<p>No, getting in early is more difficult. Barring some sort of mistake first semester, those accepted early would have been accepted RD, and many of those accepted RD would not have been accepted early. Only the slam-dunk applicants, in the admissions officers’ eyes, are accepted early.</p>
<p>^The applicant pool is, on average, more qualified in the early round, but a considerably higher percentage of applicants are, accordingly, accepted from that pool. So my point remains: if an applicant is at the high end of qualifications for all Stanford applicants, early action isn’t appreciably more difficult than RD. Obviously for an “average” applicant, it’s a poor bet, especially since Stanford doesn’t do nearly as much deferring to RD as some other schools do.</p>
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<p>Yet it is contradicted by the results (many are accepted RD after deferral), logic (they have less information about early applicants), and what a Stanford admissions officer said during an information session.</p>
<p>Feel free to believe what you like, silverturtle. Some are indeed accepted RD after deferral, but the point is that rather few REA applicants are deferred in the first place, relative to other colleges. Re: “logic”, in most cases there won’t be all that much additional information to supply between Nov. 1 and Jan. 1, other than a single term’s grades which, if consistent with the applicant’s previous grades, won’t enhance his application significantly. And yes, the admissions people like to emphasize that REA is best reserved for the most compelling applicants, both because there isn’t a high rate of deferral and because it’s never too soon to start courting those who will be accepted REA.</p>
<p>The take-away point I’m making for the benefit of the OP is that for tip-top applicants, REA is a good plan. For “average” applicants to the most competitive schools, not so much. By “tip-top” I mean students who can present qualifications well beyond garden-variety stuff like high GPA and test scores, a full menu of AP’s, and the usual EC suspects, and/or have some very unusual or institutionally-desirable attributes.</p>
<p>I tend to doubt admissions officers only when there is evidence that belies their claims (which does happen), but here both logic and the results support the claim. What evidence do you have that counters these factors? </p>
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<p>One’s most recent grades are significantly influential in the admissions process.</p>
<p>^The evidence is that 13+% of the (more highly-qualified) applicants are accepted during the REA round, whereas acceptances from the more generic (on average) RD pool are about half that. So, again, for the top applicants, the early round won’t be “harder” because the double acceptance rate compensates for the generally higher level of competition. I really don’t think we are disagreeing very much, in retrospect: it comes down to the point that REA is best utilized by those who are standouts even among elite-college applicants. So the answer to the OP’s original query is “It depends on the relative competitiveness of your application”, which is what I have been trying to say, and have now sufficiently flogged to call it a day.</p>
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<p>You did not support this claim.</p>
<p>Res ipsa loquitur.</p>
<p>um. from an outsiders opinion, you were both supporting 2 parts of the same claim.</p>
<p>That’s essentially what I concluded several posts ago, too. (see #10 above.)</p>
<p>The weird thing about Stanford’s SCEA is their tendency to outright reject people. Someone compared the two policies to Yale–at Yale, there’s absolutely no chance that its harder to get in if you apply SCEA. Any student with a legitimate shot gets at least deferred to RD at Yale, and so will have at least the same chances as an RD student.</p>
<p>At Stanford, they tend to deny a lot more SCEA students, which makes things sort of weird. I think its a bad policy, because they have to guess what their applicants are going to be like. There should be a thread a couple pages back posted by someone from Missouri who wrote about his friends who were denied from Stanford SCEA compared to his accepted friends RD.</p>
<p>@Msauce: i dont think its necessarily a bad policy. its advantageous if they already know that those applicants are not what they are looking for. why make them wait until april? many people say that “less qualified” applicants are accepted RD, but they could be exactly the kind of applicants that stanford wants</p>
<p>Yale does defer lots more early applicants than does Stanford. I certainly met lots of amazing, impressive people at the events for Stanford early admittees, though, so they seemed to be doing a pretty good job of admitting great candidates. I’m sure they miss some here and there, as every selective college does.</p>
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<p>It’s funny, but a Stanford admissions officer told me just the opposite – that applying early actually gives a very slight ‘boost’ because the adcoms knew that Stanford was your ‘first choice’. </p>
<p>Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s appreciatively harder to get accepted in either round. It’s not like Stanford’s admissions standards change from REA to RD. You may be facing stiffer competition in REA but it’s not like the adcoms make decisions based solely on how competitive your peers are in a specific applicant round. And this is all coming from an REA admit who was definitely NOT a ‘tip-top’ or ‘elite’ applicant.</p>
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<p>That’s odd. :)</p>
<p>Haha guys thanks for replying but I think you guys are confused too. I was also wondering why applying early would give you a boost simply b/c that’s your first choice. Isn’t it first choice for all EA ppl? Maybe I can email Stanford withthis question if you guys are interested</p>