<p>I'm a junior and I'd like to get a head-start on early applications this summer. I've been considering SCEA to Harvard or Yale, but I can't decide which one to go for. I know I'm probably as likely (a.k.a. as unlikely) to get into either of them, but I'm sure they look for slightly different things in an applicant. If you could give me some advice, I'd really appreciate it!
In general, I have pretty good quantitative stats (2380 SAT, 4.0 GPA, 12 APs by end of high school, 800s on three SAT IIs, top 1-2% of class at relatively competitive public school in competitive state), but I'm sure others can do better. In terms of ECs, I've got leadership and several awards in Model UN (President of a committee of 140 people), Youth & Government (elected Speaker of the assembly), Peer Leaders (treasurer), NHS (head of tutoring), Mock Trial (co-captain), and the Spanish Correspondence club (president). My most important extracurricular is Indian music (over 30 competition wins, performed in 10 states and won a spot in an international music festival in London, recording contract in India, master classes from renowned musicians). I was a research assistant at a neuroscience lab last summer and will be returning to the lab this summer as well.
I'd say my main strengths, though, would be music, political activism/leadership, and hopefully my essays.
That being said, I can't fathom which school would suit me better (or which one would want me haha). Or rather, should I consider another school at which I have better chances?
Help me! :0</p>
<p>First of all, congrats on your scores and achievements; you are clearly a great student whom I think most would agree is ‘qualified’ for those upper level schools. </p>
<p>One piece of advice I feel compelled to provide you, especially given your more generic ECs, is to save your EA for a match school(s). I applied to Stanford REA; when I was rejected, I had no idea if it was because Stanford is just very selective or if there was something in my app I could improve, such as essays. Then, I was deferred by a match school of mine: UVA. That deferral signaled to me that I should consider rewriting my essays, which I had originally thought were genius, a sentiment echoed by counselors, CC members, etc…I did, and I truly think my new essays saved me in the RD round, as I heard favorably from some places to which I sent the new essays (Duke) and less so from places to which I sent the originals (the Ivies as well as Vanderbilt, WashU, USC, Cornell, all of which possess higher admissions rates than does Duke, though I realize all schools are looking for something different). </p>
<p>In short, if you apply somewhere as selective as Yale or Harvard early and get rejected/deferred, you will have nothing by which to gauge your decision and likely attribute your decision to the competitiveness of the school. If you apply to a match school and get some bad news, you’ll be able to revisit your apps and potentially strengthen them for the RD round, making it more likely you’ll gain admission to Yale and or Harvard. </p>
<p>Of course, not everyone is like this; you may very well get accepted outright. My strategy is just more cautious and based on both my own experience and the feedback of friends who applied SCEA to the top schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice! To be honest, I’d rather hedge my bets and apply to one of my top schools early, because I’m perfectly fine with waiting till April if I’m deferred, and I also plan to apply to several matches and safeties if rejected. I guess most of my ECs are quite generic, but I don’t know if I could quite say that about Indian music (international performer/recording contract/televised in India). I guess that’s just a matter of opinion, though. Apart from that, my principal question was which of the two (H & Y) should I consider, if I plan on taking that route?</p>
<p>Visit both! See the campuses, talk to the students, see how you like them. If you can’t do that for whatever reason, then talk to some Yale/Harvard students over CC and have them list some pro’s and cons. But it would be best to visit both campuses.</p>
<p>Thanks puumba1! I’ve visited both already and really loved both campuses. I also have friends/family who are/have been students at both, and both seemed wonderful. That’s why my decision is so difficult. Does anyone know whether either school favors a certain part of the app over the other?</p>
<p>you caught me- some were prospective posts, just to keep people from saying “oh, you don’t even know any of your stats yet” (but i did take standardized tests early so the info is accurate)</p>
<p>Note that Yale and Harvard SCEA are slightly different with respect to what you agree with respect to applying early to public universities.</p>
<p>Harvard SCEA allows you to apply EA (not ED) to any public school. Yale SCEA allows you to apply EA (not ED) to public schools in your home state. If you are considering applying EA to out of state public schools, you may want to consider this difference.</p>
<p>your stats are so amazing!! you seem very well-rounded but clearly passionate about what you do. I’m applying next year too and I kind of wish I had your profile… from past experience with friends who have graduated and current seniors, lots of extremely high-profile musicians/artsy people get acceptance into Yale, but not always Harvard. However, I’m sure you can get into both if your essays are fine, so I would probably just go by best fit :)</p>
<p>Well in that case, first of all congrats on all your accomplishments so far! And secondly, overall I just have a gut feeling that you’d be a better fit for harvard than yale. Harvard has a better stem program, and I think your ecs will be viewed in a more favorable light. Honestly, if you don’t get into either school, I’m losing all hope for my own admissions :(</p>
<p>I agree with Brownford. Don’t apply to any EA which restricts you from applying EA anywhere else. I saw great students this year apply restricted EA, get deferred from that one school and then be sitting in December not knowing what to do (was there something wrong with their application, should they rethink what schools they should apply to. etc.) These students had a horrible wait until April and lo and behold got in after their deferrasl and also had other great Ivy acceptances. So the early round had no advantage and only disadvantages. If at all possible apply to a safety early and then you know in December you have somewhere to go. Then in the regular round you can still apply to these schools and probably have the same result!</p>
<p>If you visited both schools and liked them equally, there is no answer here and just flip a coin. Historically the Harvard application has been easier with fewer essays and short answers. Although Harvard SCEA appeared easier this year than Yale based on the numbers, it was hard to predict the effects of the newly offered Harvard SCEA. The higher SCEA admit rates are misleading since they include recruited athletes and the general pool is stronger than for RD. It is increasingly easy to understand why applying EA to Chicago makes sense over SCEA. One major benefit of a December admission is to have a world class safety and minimize efforts on applications to other safeties and matches. This is statistically less common in the ultra-compettive HYP SCEA rounds.</p>
<p>I had 2380 and 3 800s and I had the same dilemma two years ago.</p>
<p>Stanford REA, Princeton SCEA and Yale SCEA VS Chicago, MIT, Caltech and Georgetown unrestricted EA</p>
<p>I decided to go with unrestricted EA since I did not have hooks, incredible ECs or major awards. I applied to MIT, Chicago and Georgetown and was accepted from two of them. It was great to have incredible options in December.</p>