EA or RD?

<p>My son will be applying to ND this fall and we are leaning towards doing EA, however, I am not sure. (daughter went to ND and applied EA). His stats are below. I'd love to hear from the more recent applicants on whether this would be the right path! </p>

<p>Male
Top 20 Chicago suburban public high school
Does not rank, but probably better than the top 5%
GPA (on a 4.0 scale) 4.29
ACT: 35
Math 36
Science 36
Reading 34
English 33
Wants to major in Engineering, possibly Chemical but not sure</p>

<p>AP's this year (score tbd)
Chemistry
English
U.S. History
Computer Science
Ap's next year
Physics
Calculus BC
Government
Macroeconmics
Classes taken: all honors or AP where available</p>

<p>Activities/Honors:
Community service: Tutors, Church service trip,
National Honor Society
Competitive Fencer
Concert Choir
Environmental Action Club, 4 years, President 2 years
Scholastic Bowl, 4 years, Captain 2 years
Track team, 1 year
High School Science Star award for Chemistry
Performance and Competitive Irish Bodhran player</p>

<p>Misc:</p>

<p>Legacy, with Father (also Sister and Grandfather, though I know they don't note those)
U.S. Naval Academy Summer Seminar 2012
Naval Academy Computer Science Excellence award
Naval Academy Outstanding Chemistry award
Naval Academy Outstanding Physics award
Science seminar classes taken at University of Chicago</p>

<p>They say to only do ea if you are certain that you will get in. I would imagine your son is as certain of getting in as it gets. Good luck.</p>

<p>Thank you for your nice thoughts! I’m not sure anything is all that certain, but we’ll just see. Best of luck to you and thanks again for your help.</p>

<p>As a current ND tour guide, I usually tell students that between EA and RD your odds are essentially the same, but if you are prepared enough to apply early it eliminates many months of painful waiting! I applied RD and having to wait for a decision until late March nearly killed me.
The only reason to wait for RD would be in order to take the ACT/SAT again to get higher scores, but your son seems to have competitive scores already so I see no reason to delay. Good luck to him!</p>

<p>as a legacy he looks almost certain for EA. My son’s stats were slightly lower than you list and our local rep said he should definitely apply EA. Just finished a great freshman year. Talk to your local admissions rep. They are very helpful.</p>

<p>I was accepted to Notre Dame EA last year with similar scores. If Notre Dame is your son’s first choice and tuition might be an issue, you might want to note that the full scholarship (Hesburgh-Yusko Program) deadline is the Early Action deadline.</p>