<p>Hey guys, I'm an international student considering to apply to Stanford in the early action process, but i have some doubts concerning my chances of acceptance in comparison with the regular decision. Would it be better for me to apply RD or EA?
Also, what are the requirements that I should have in order to apply EA (apart from the fact that it should be my #1 uni) ? </p>
<p>The requirements will be on the admissions website. Just be aware, in case you aren’t, that unlike some selective colleges, they seem to reject a lot ED and not even defer them to RD.</p>
<p>Exactly. Stanford SCEA rejects majority of the applicants and defers very little portion. You better get your credential well prepared before applying. There is no official requirement, but it is a general belief to have great test scores, GPA, EC, and essays are essential. I can testify they will reject someone with GPA 4.0, ACT 35, 800 in all SAT2, 5 in all APs if you do not show a passion in your EC and write great essays.</p>
<p>The only sure way in is to be a recruited athlete. Then you can have just about anything above a 25 - but to be able to play for Stanford, you better be really good. Being a child of the President helps, but you probably need higher stats than the athletes.</p>
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What are you basing this on? An old article mentions that Stanford athletes had an average HS GPA of 3.8. It’s probably higher today. There only a small number of sports for which I’d expect athletes to have much lower HS grades than the overall class. The most obvious one is football. And even football players average a 3.6+ GPA. A related article about football recruiting is at <a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704364004576132503526250500”>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704364004576132503526250500</a> and quoted below:</p>
<p>Stanford also must recruit from a smaller pool—a fact that analysts say could slow them down in the future. "One of the coaches told me they can only recruit from 250 kids across the country that are academically eligible, and even fewer of those are premier Division I athletes,</p>
<p>It’s slightly tongue-in-cheek, but less than you think. I can point to our Naviance graph that has an EA acceptance of someone with a 27 and 3.7. Can’t guarantee that’s a recruited athlete, but I can’t see anyone else getting in with those stats. I think someone last fall on CC was a wrestler with similar stats, maybe slightly lower GPA.</p>
<p>Maybe those are good number for an athlete, but trust me, there’s no team at Stanford that is only full of ACT 33+ athletes, which is the lowest score we’ve ever had a non-athlete get in with.</p>
<p>Agree with @Data10.
Stanford has to recruit from a very very small pool of highly talented academic athletes who can play against the likes of Ohio State or Alabama and at the same time have the academic chops to compete against students who attend MIT or Princeton…it is an extremely small elite pool to pick from…and we are not just talking about basketball or football (that certain schools are only known for) but in every competitive NCAA sport outside of hockey (PAC-12 schools don’t play hockey)…it isn’t a coincidence that Stanford has won the Director’s Cup 20 years in a row…</p>
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It sounds like you have no idea whether the low stat admit was a recruited athlete, so you can’t use it as evidence to show that all low stat admits are athletes. I was admitted to Stanford several years ago with a ~3.5 HS GPA and 500 CR SAT. My HS GPA was in the bottom several percent of my entering class. My CR score was in the bottom 1%… among the ~6 lowest scores in the entire entering class. Nevertheless, I was not an athlete or hook. I had other reasons for being admitted, including having a 4.0 in many college classes taken outside of HS, being a math/CS/STEM specialist with top scores on related tests, etc. The point is I wouldn’t assume that every admit with lower scores is an athlete. There are many other reasons why students with lower scores get admitted.</p>
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33 is above the median test score at Stanford, so I wouldn’t expect many non-athlete groups only contain persons with an ACT of 33+. The article I mentioned earlier stated that athletes on Stanford’s womens teams averaged a 3.87 several years ago. In that same period, the CDS mentions the overall class had an average GPA of 3.86. So Stanford’s female athletes averaged a higher GPA than the overall class. I wouldn’t be surprised if their ACT scores were slightly higher than the overall class, like their GPA and graduation rate.</p>
<p>You are the exception trying to prove the rule and I don’t think you’re a typical case. I can look at our Naviance graph and data and can tell you we get several kids in Stanford every year. With one exception, they are all 3.95+ ACT 33+ kids. The one sticks out like a sore thumb. I can’t confirm that that is an athlete admit, but every other case where I see similar graphs at other elite schools, I do know that those are athlete admits. They are generally kids who score above average on the ACT (around 27), take basic HS classes (few APs), and do well in them (3.7+ UGPA). Under no other circumstances would they be considered for the elite schools unless they were athletes. </p>
<p>But here’s the dirty little secret about the elite schools - anyone that scores a 27 on the ACT is smart enough to do well there because a 27 is actually pretty smart. A 27 will get you through med school, and we don’t need physician quality students to get BS/BA degrees, even at the elite schools. It’s just that they can pick from better students, so unless you have a special talent, they don’t let ordinary students in with only 27s.</p>
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No. I’m the exception trying disprove an all generalization. In any case, it sounds like your high school is not typical. I expect it also has a small sample size of admits and/or has few low scoring applicants. Stanford’s CDS mentions 25th and 75th percentile ACT composites of 31 and 34. Obviously quite a lot entering students have below a 33. Cappex’s scatterplot has a large sample of applicants and shows the same pattern. It suggest roughly half of admits have below a 33 or equivalent. Parchment also has a large sample of applicants. Among Parchment members with a 3.9+ UW while taking 3+ AP courses, the acceptance rates by ACT score over the past 3 years are below. Yes, Parchment is self reported and overestimates, but it in no way suggests a threshold of 33 ACT + 3.95 UW GPA for admittance unless a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>36 – 25%
35 – 23%
34 – 19%
33 – 12%
32 – 18%
31 – 12%
27-30 – 17% (small sample size)</p>
<p>The decision results for the class of 2018 Stanford RD acceptance results by ACT score from this site are below. </p>
<p>Accepted ACT Score – 28, 30, 31, 33, 33, 34, 34, 35, 35
Rejected ACT Score – 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 35, 35, 35, 35, 36 </p>
<p>Note that ~3/4 of all posters in the thread had a 33+, so one would expect the vast majority of admits to have a 33+ since this site is full of top scoring applicants and apparently has few lower scoring applicants (or at least few who post in decision threads). Nevertheless, 1/3 of the accepted posters had below a 33, and none of them appear to be recruited athletes or have any major hook. Also note that the median score of accepted posters (33) was significantly lower than the median score of rejected posters (35). Looking at the score distribution, one might wonder if Stanford favors lower scoring applicants over higher scoring ones. I expect they instead favor students who accomplish amazing things outside of the classroom and sound like they will go on to do amazing things at Stanford and in life, and such kids in the decision threads are less likely to be near perfect stat 35+ types. Stanford focuses on scores less than most other highly selective colleges, which relates to why the the 25th and 75th percentile scores I listed are lower than most other highly selective colleges, with very low admit rates.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what your point is, except you seem to be arguing that Stanford is unlike any other school in the country in that they don’t cut corners for athletes when they clearly do. Stanford or any other college sports program could not survive on pure academic admits alone - that is all I’m saying. And even more so in Stanford’s case because they are a true Div I school. No alumni wishes to believe that about their school any more than they want to think corners are cut for developmentals or legacy donors or URMs, but it happens. That is the way the game is played - I wish it weren’t, because I or my kids certainly aren’t benefitting from any of it since we have no athletic talents, don’t have family fortunes, and aren’t alumni of any big name schools, all we are is smart - but if you look at where we were a 100 years ago, not so bad.</p>
<p>There are 900 intercollegiate athletes at Stanford, 300 on scholarship. Are all of them below the mid-50 range for test scores? No, of course not. But Stanford couldn’t produce the number of championships it has on pure academic admits alone either - not when it’s in competition just academic-wise with at least two dozen other peer schools, not to mention all those schools who are more than willing to take on true pure athletes who are just waiting for a chance to turn pro. To it’s credit, Stanford is among the best schools in graduating student-athletes, so it obviously has some pretty high standards for them, but it absolutely does not hold all of them to the same standards as it has for non-athletes - no school does. We’d all be better off if more schools followed Stanford’s lead in requiring their athletes to be academically qualified, but even Stanford isn’t crazy enough to admit on an athletic talent-blind basis.</p>
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Your earlier post claimed that the one person from your HS who was admitted with below a 3.95 and 33 ACT had to be an athlete. I gave examples showing plenty of relatively low scoring admits are not athletes, including ones well outside of your range.</p>
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That wasn’t all you were saying. There is a difference between cutting corners and saying that athletes with an ACT of 25 are guaranteed admission, like you claimed in your earlier post. Even Tiger Woods was told he needed at least a 3.6 HS GPA + advanced courses + higher test scores than you listed in his initial recruitment letter…</p>
<p>Athletes in some sports do average lower stats… academically qualified to succeed in the coursework, but lower than the overall class. However, athletes in some sports (likely the majority) do not show large differences from the overall class. Stanford’s magazine lists stats from several years ago showing the average HS GPA among Stanford athletes was 3.8, with men’s teams averaging about 0.07 less and women’s teams averaging about 0.07 more. This puts women’s teams above the average GPA of the overall class for that period. How can the teams be full of low stat students, if women’s teams average a higher HS GPA than the overall class? According to the NCAA, Stanford athletes as a whole have a 97% grad rate (GSR),. If such a larger portion of athletes are academically unqualified, why do they have such a high graduation rate? </p>
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Stanford’s FR grad rate ties with Bucknell as the highest FR grad rate among all division I colleges. Stanford produces a large number of national championships and high ranking teams, yet Stanford athletes still had the highest FR grad rate of all division I teams. This is not an impossible contradiction. Instead it fits with the athlete GPA stats I listed earlier. Stanford is not admitting unqualified athletes who couldn’t possibly handle the course work. Sure the athletes on some teams (not all teams) average lower stats than the overall class, but not ridiculously lower. </p>
<p>For example, the sport that I’d expect to have the lowest average stats is football. The most well known recent Stanford football alumni is Andrew Luck. Many know that Luck was the 1st NFL draft pick and a Heismen trophy runner up, but did you know he was valedictorian of his high school and graduated from Stanford with quality grades in an engineering school major? The 2nd most well known recent football alumni is probably Richard Sherman… Many know about Sherman’s antics on the field and have strong opinions about him, but did you know he was salutorian of his high school and used his 5th year of eligibility to pursue a master’s at Stanford, after completing his bachelor’s with claimed high grades? These are not oddball exceptions, even among football players, admitted students are qualified to do the coursework.Sure the average GPA of football players is lower than the the overall class, but it’s not low enough to suggest they cannot handle the course work or do not belong there. </p>
<p>Among sports that have less opportunity to make millions going pro, the athletes’ stats more closely resemble the full class. This relates to why the average HS GPA among female athletes was slightly higher than the overall class in the stats I listed earlier. Unlike football, in many sports, it is quite common to find students who excel both on the field and in the classroom. </p>
<p>All GPAs are not created equal. Where is the data that the athlete’s rigor was the equal of the non-athletes? It’s awfully easy to maintain a 3.9 in basic classes compared to someone taking 4 APs a year. Also, why not list test scores as well, something that is not so easily manipulated by prudent course selection. If they’re releasing HS GPAs, they certainly have access to the test scores as well, unless it’s a selective release of information and those are not quite as favorable.</p>
<p>As for Andrew Luck, he’s a quarterback. The quarterback is almost always one of if not the smartest player on the team. The classic stereotype of sports is that there are no successful stupid quarterbacks or catchers. If Luck weren’t smart, I’d be shocked. Sherman is a cornerback, another position that requires some pretty quick thinking. We’re not talking linemen here - but let’s not stereotype, even some of those guys can be pretty bright.</p>
<p>As for my assertion that our 3.7/27 EA admit was an athlete, let’s look at it this way - we average 10 -11 applications to Stanford a year. Over the last 7 years, the lowest ACT anyone has submitted is a 27, and that by 2 points. The lowest GPA anyone has ever submitted was a 3.65, the 3.7 is the second lowest GPA ever submitted. So the by far worst student by a large margin out of 75 or so ever to apply in seven years (and they’re actually pretty good compared to most of the rest of the country, they’re just bad by Stanford standards) just happens to apply EA and gets in and you don’t think there’s a high chance they were a recruited athlete? Perhaps we need to talk investment opportunities…</p>
<p>The national ACT average is 20-21, I really doubt Stanford is letting many (or any) of those people in. (Notice that our highly touted recruit with that score plays for Michigan, not Stanford.) The average college grad has a 23. Top 10% of the population occurs at 25. The average Ph.D or MD has a 27 and that puts them in the top 5% of the population. A 27 is really, really good by most standards, but they aren’t on the radar by Stanford standards. I’m sure they can do the work, even a 25 can do the work at Stanford - but how many non-athletes with those scores get in that aren’t legacies, developmentals, or URMs? It’s not that soft-stated athletes shouldn’t get in, but maybe more soft-stated non-athletes should get in. And if not, why not?</p>
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Most HS quarterbacks are far from elite students. For example, skimming through the top few ranked quarterback recruits on ESPN, one has a HS GPA of only 2.4, and none are on par with Stanford’s average. Sherman was admitted as a wide receiver. Wide receiver and corner back are two of the positions with the lowest average wonderlic score. Only fullback and halfback are lower. One survey found the only occupations with lower average wonderlic scores than wide receivers were warehousemen and janitors. It’s not just random chance that so many of Stanford’s players were also top students in the classroom during HS. Stanford limits their athletic recruiting and acceptances to students who meet academic standards. The earlier article I quoted mentioned only 250 academically eligible football recruits — “One of the coaches told me they can only recruit from 250 kids across the country that are academically eligible, and even fewer of those are premier Division I athletes.”</p>
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Earlier you said that you can’t see anyone besides an athlete getting in with these stats. Do you think being an athlete is the only possible hook? Or the only possible reason for a low stat student to be accepted? Yes, he may have been an athlete, or he may have been a first generation URM, or he may have been a legacy, or or he may have been the national debate champion, or he may regularly play piano in Carnegie hall, or he may have created a highly successful app, or he may have been an award winning author, or maybe he was like me and received a 4.0 in college classes taken out of HS + was a specialist with pointy test scores, or countless other possible things Stanford found impressive on his application besides just athletics. </p>
<p>The lowest test scoring Stanford admits I have ever heard of were not all athletes. Instead most were students who overcame extremely challenging situations involving unique and amazing backgrounds, and showed many other great things in their application. One example long term posters may remember is the CC poster Mr. Tubbs who was admitted a few years ago with a 24/25 math/science, without being a recruited athlete. He had low scores, but looking at has application it was obvious he was an amazing person who was likely to accomplish great things. At Stanford, he completed a co-terminal masters with honors, received the highest award given to Stanford students (Dinkelspeil), and went on to be the youngest ever elected official of his home town during his graduation year. Athletic admits likely have rules about how stats must compare to the overall class. Individual students in the certain other categories likely have less restriction.</p>