EA choice suggestions

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Important Note
This is not a proper college application for me. I have already been accepted to my top-choice University in my home country, and will probably stay there. However, I really want to study abroad, so I’m taking my chances and applying to other countries as well. Since it is a considerable effort for my family and me both economically and emotionally to move half across the globe, I will only be doing so if it is for a very prestigious University. I know the chances of me getting into an Ivy or other top school while preparing my application on my own are slim to none, but these are not my only options. Therefore, considering the need for financial aid and my different educational background, I’d like to know somebody’s opinion on which University I should try to apply to for Early Admissions.

Demographics

  • international student
  • State/Location of residency: Milan, Italy
  • Type of high school: Scientific Traditional High School (3rd best in the city, there isn’t an official ranking for the whole country)
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Female

Intended Major(s)
Government, Public Policy, International Relations
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: There is no GPA system in Italy, the correspondent is 9.13/10 for Senior Year and around 9.25 for the four years
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): No weighting system
  • Class Rank: top 5% or less
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1550 on SAT

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
Latin A2
English C2
Spanish A2
Subjects are not elective and don’t have AP programs, they’re already set for every type of high school. Courses I’ve taken consistently throughout five years of high school: Maths (up to Calculus), Italian Literature and Writing, English Culture and Language, Chemistry, Biology, Earth Sciences, Philosophy, Physics, Civic and Social Studies, World History, Art History, Technical Drawing, Latin Language and History

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Experience abroad: I studied for one semester in Vancouver, Canada during my Senior year (all grades above 95%).
Sports: tennis, dance, martial arts, boxe, gymnastics
Summer activities: International Summer School (twice) to study International Relations
Internship: Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Debate Workshop with ENI, Chemical Industry course with Federchimica, Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano (different course), Energy Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Biological Research at Università degli Studi di Milano
Will participate in MUN session in March 2024.
Twice Class President.

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
I would necessarily need funding, loans or financial aid except if the school belongs to the EU.

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability)
    Politecnico di Milano (Best Engineering University in Europe and 13th best in the world)

  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
    Bocconi University (3rd best Economics and Management University in Europe and 7th in the world)

  • Reach/Universities I am considering applying to
    Europe: Sciences Po
    UK: UCL, University of Edinburgh, King’s College, Cambridge, LSE
    USA: unsure

2

For program strength in your areas of interest, these sites may offer you ideas for colleges to look into further:

3

These are some excellent schools for your academic interests that may be affordable for you, should you gain acceptance to one or more of them:

Brown University
Carleton College
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Hamilton College
New York University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania

As you have suggested, you would like to take your chances at highly selective U.S. colleges. Applications to schools of your choice from the group above could certainly match that objective.

4

So just to clarify, there are a variety of early application options.

In terms of where else you can apply early, the most restrictive is Restrictive Early Action/Single Choice Early Action. You need to check the specific terms, but usually the gist is you cannot apply to any other US private colleges early, and nowhere else binding. But typically you can apply to US public colleges early, or non-US colleges early, as long as it is non-binding.

Early Decision is restrictive in that you can only apply to one college ED at a time. But possibly you can do what is called ED 1, and then if not admitted, do another college ED 2 (assuming it is offered). You can also typically apply ED 2 if not admitted REA/SCEA. Usually ED colleges do not care if you apply other places early, as long as that is not binding.

And then Early Action is not binding, and does not limit where else you can apply early.

So usually, your options include:

  1. Apply REA/SCEA at one college, early non-binding at US publics and non-US colleges, and possibly ED 2 at another college;

  2. Apply ED 1 at one college, early non-binding anywhere else, and possibly ED 2 at another college;

  3. Apply Early Action at potentially many colleges, and possibly ED 2 at one college.

OK, so, you need to decide if you want to apply ED 1 or REA/SCEA anywhere. There are various potentially good reasons not to, so this is not an automatic decision.

If you apply ED 1, you also then need to decide where, if anywhere, you want to apply non-binding EA.

If you apply REA/SCEA, you also need to decide if there are any publics where you would want to apply early (you’ve already applied early outside the US, which is fine).

And in either case, you may want to start thinking about a possible ED 2 college.

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5

In general, where EA is possible (i.e. not restricted by REA rules), it is best to apply EA because many colleges with EA become more selective (or their popular majors become more selective) in RD because EA fills up most of the space.

So I would amend the above to say:

  • If applying ED1, apply EA to all other desired colleges where it is offered, other than where REA prohibits applying REA there while applying ED1 anywhere.
  • If applying REA, apply EA to all other desired colleges where it is offered and which are not under the REA college’s restriction against applying EA, or where the other college has REA that prohibits applying REA to your REA college. Some REA colleges only restrict against applying ED elsewhere, but others restrict against applying EA to other private schools in the US, so read the REA rules carefully.
  • If not applying ED1 or REA, apply EA to all desired colleges where it is offered.

If any college has rolling admission, apply as early as possible for the same reason that EA should be chosen where possible.

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From what I have seen, there are really only a relatively small number of colleges like that. Some of those are quite popular colleges in certain circles, but many colleges that are not at the top of those popularity charts simply do not get enough yield out of EA applicants to “fill up” their class.

I note all this is distinct from rolling admissions. Rolling admissions obviously isn’t about a point in time but it can have a similar effect at a selective college, and that again is true at certain popular rolling admissions colleges.

Restricted majors are also an entirely different subject. If a major is restricted it is then very likely to be a good idea to apply early, whether through EA or rolling, if possible.

7

Most of these colleges are need aware for admissions for international students. This means your level of financial need can be considered as part of reviewing your application for admissions.

The following are both need blind and meet full need for all accepted international students:

Amherst College Harvard University
Bowdoin College Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Brown University*(beginning in 2025) Princeton University
Dartmouth College Yale University
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University of Maryland College Park is known for filling up nearly all of its class through EA (so that RD is considered reach for all applicants), but its yield rate is only 23%.

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Sure, that is one commonly-cited example.

If you go through this list, you will see a wide variety of patterns:

Often (where available) the EA admissions rate is higher than the RD rate, but the RD rate is still quite high–over 50%, say, and many even higher.

So these were colleges that did not “fill up” with ED/EA.

10

Those data are two years old (and the schools incomplete), but still helpful directionally speaking. IMO the bigger issue with EA is that at some schools certain majors will substantially or completely fill up (Engineering/business/CS at UIUC, engineering at Purdue) and/or merit aid is greater in early rounds and diminishes in RD (harder to get data because schools are often not transparent about this, but this is true at Purdue and Tulane).

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Absolutely. I am definitely not suggesting you can safely apply RD versus EA everywhere. If you are looking at a popular major with capped first-year admissions, you very likely should apply ED, EA, or early in a rolling period (whatever is available).

Merit scholarships are tricky for the reason you gave. Theoretically, you might think it would go something like EA > RD > ED (since why give a merit offer to someone who is bound anyway?). But some colleges will say it doesn’t matter. Other colleges will say your best chances of merit are if you apply early, and they might even have an official early merit deadline. Possibly historic information will help indicate what is going on. But transparency and merit do not often go hand in hand.

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