<p>Both these schools have about the same statistics when it comes to accepted students, and I am in the range, so no worries about my stats.</p>
<p>I need to figure out which school will benefit me most to apply early to. Since I am only going to apply EA to one or the other, Stanford's Single Choice EA policy doesn't affect me at all.</p>
<p>Which school seems to admit a higher percentage of EA applicants compared to RD? In other words, which school will I have a greater chance of acceptance applying EA rather than RD?</p>
<p>I really have no preference on which one I’d like to attend–well, not really, but the deal is that I have only visited it MIT (and I liked it a lot and I saw it as a great fit for me). I am sure I would like Stanford equally as much BUT I cannot visit due to insanely high airline ticket prices. Ideally, I would like to be able to choose between both of them come admission time, but hopefully I will at least get one of them to accept me! Though I guess technically I am trying to develop a strategy, I just want to know where to get some data to see where my best chances when it comes to EA will be.</p>
<p>MIT EA does not offer a statistical advantage over RD in admission. Most likely if your stats are solid, you will not be outright rejected but may end up deferred and would get a full second review for RD. One possible benefit is that you can apply to other schools with EA admission at the same time such as CalTech or Chicago. </p>
<p>Stanford is single choice EA. It rejects far more applicants than it defers. If you take away the hooked applicants, you may not have much of an advantage over RD either.</p>
<p>I agree that strategizing may not help much. Each school has a definite culture and lack of focus could cost you. Each school gets far more academically qualified applicants than it can admit, so that the intangibles often make the difference.</p>
<p>I made the same decision a couple of years ago and besides liking Stanford a lot more, from the strategy end it also made more sense in my mind. Even though I agree with others who say you may be going down the wrong path that way if you don’t like both schools equally, I think it’s quite possible to be at the very least extremely interested in both schools and able to write good apps accordingly.</p>
<p>Now for the strategy, though this is of course just opinions based on conjectures about the admission process:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford is far more likely to give you a definite decision. MIT on the other hand, defers most of its applicants which, for the most part, will be rejected RD. I think Stanford’s policy is better because it gives you a heads up as to how “competitive” you are. Also, what’s the point of deferring people whom lets face it, the admissions officers probably knew had a very slim chance of making the RD cut? </li>
<li>While Stanford claims that SCEA doesn’t help the application and that its because of the higher qualified pool+hooked applicants (which is true) as a student of the school I can’t 100% believe that. Why else would Stanford make it “Single Choice” if there was no advantage whatsoever from applying early, other than hearing back early? I think it allows you to stake Stanford as your first choice-which is a plus especially since you’re from the East Coast. Of course these things are minor things (and may not exist-this is just conjecture), maybe we would call them tips, but with an admissions rate in the single digits anything that could possibly help helps. amirite?</li>
<li>If you’re a procrastinator like me and would wait to the end to do your RD apps, having to do a more intensive application first is a great boon. Stanford’s app is more essay intensive than MIT’s and arguably the most essay intensive of all top schools. Getting this app done will help you come RD because there will probably be a lot of stuff you can recycle from your Stanford app that you can use on your MIT and other applications.</li>
</ol>
<p>I agree with the others that strategy is a poor method of choosing. If you are interested in seeing how many 2013 students were admitted, however:</p>
<p>Stanford
EA applied: 5363
EA accepted: 689 (12.8%)
EA deferred: 1009 (21.6%)
EA rejected: 3665 (68.3%)
RD applied: 24986
Total RD pool: 25995
RD accepted: 1611 (6.20%)
Waitlist accepted: 85
Final RD acceptance rate: 6.52%</p>
<p>MIT
EA applied: 4681
EA accepted: 540 (11.5%)
EA deferred: 3644 (77.8%)
EA rejected: 497 (10.6%)
Deferred EA accepted: 299 (8.21%) Total EA accepted: 17.9%
RD applied: 10981
RD accepted: 758 (6.90%)
Waitlist accepted: 78 Total RD accepted: 7.61%</p>
<p>Also consider that MIT legacies are not hooked and the athletes get no scholarships.This makes comparing early at these schools like comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>The early round at most top schools only favors the hooked.</p>
<p>Well, I mean it only makes sense for me to apply EA at one of these schools. The other schools I am looking at are either ED (which I can’t guarantee I could pay for) or RD.</p>