Early Action at Multiple Colleges vs REA at one

Hi,

I’m seriously not sure whether I should apply EA at colleges I have a decent/high chance at, or do REA at a college I have a 99% chance of rejection from. For reference my SAT is 1520 (800 Math, 720 EBRW), I have a 3.92/4.61 GPA, and average extracurriculars.

My options are either
Early Action/Rolling Admissions:

  • UT Dallas (safety)
  • Colorado School of Mines (low match)
  • CalTech (strong reach)
  • Northeastern (hard match)
  • SCU (low match)
    or
    REA:
  • Stanford (long reach)
  • UT Dallas/CO Mines
    Which one would you say is more worth it? I feel like I could potentially be happier with the Early Action option as it would relieve a lot of stress to get some potential early acceptances, but I also feel like I’d miss an opportunity at Stanford by saving it for the RD round.

You can do all of them. REA just means you can’t do a binding ED to another school, but you can do all the EAs that you want!

Stanford REA was listed. A quote from Stanford’s website is below:

Choose from the following:

  1. Apply to Stanford REA and also apply EA to a bunch of public universities that have what you want. You are not restricted from applying to public universities early. Are you looking at engineering? You can apply EA to University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, UT-Austin, Virginia Tech, UT Dallas, Colorado Mines, university of Florida, University of Illinois, Purdue, etc.
  2. Apply someplace ED, and then apply EA to any other college you want, public or private, as long as none of them require a binding decision.

P.S. You are correct that if your only qualifications are your SAT and GPA, your chances at Stanford are less than measurable. Unless you write some sort of killer essay and your recommenders say that you are the most extraordinary student they’ve taught in 40 years and you are a demographic they want (URM, from North Dakota, homeless).

Cannot ED anywhere… only colleges I can afford are UCs, Stanford, Harvard, CSUs, and some oos public/privates with merit aid.

Also, Berkeley doesn’t do EA. Berkeley is my top choice but EECS is super competitive. What’s wrong with EA at SCU and NEU just to get those out of the way? Or is it just likely that I could still get into either through Regular decision?

I would skip Stanford unless you fall into one of the categories described in post #3 above and concentrate your efforts on affordable and/or generous merit aid schools whether through EA or RD.

I assume you live in California. Do the NPC for University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Those are the three public universities that provide excellent aid to out-of-state students.

If you REA at Stanford, you are not allowed to apply EA to private universities. That’s why I only listed publics.

Unlike some of its peers, Stanford offers little, if any, advantage to its unhooked REA applicants. Stanford also generally doesn’t like to read your application in both early and regular rounds because of the sheer volume of applications, so you typically don’t get a chance again in the regular round if you aren’t admitted in the early round.

Here is your earlier post: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/2184930-what-colleges-should-i-be-aiming-for-p1.html

You’re a very good student. Being honest though, your chances are sooooooo slim. Your stats are ok, but not in the highest percentile for Stanford. You aren’t hooked, and your activities, while solid, are not exceptional. Your SAT score is probably at the 50th percentile there. At CalTech, your SAT score is below the 25th percentile. I think CalTech is out of reach for you and I think your REA app to Stanford might stop you from applying to more realistic choices.

Your list is not balanced. You are out of state for Dallas, so I am not sure it’s a safety. They are unlikely to give you any financial aid. You will have to hope for a generous merit scholarship to make it affordable. I suggest you go back to the post you made earlier and look at some of those suggestions.

If an LGBTQ presence on campus is important to you, and you need financial aid or big merit awards, I strongly encourage you to rethink your list based on affordability. NEU is VERY stingy with merit awards. Maybe you will get something, but not enough to make it affordable, unless you get one of their very top awards.

You want to study engineering, right? I think you should consider something like Cal Poly SLO, or U Pitt, WPI or RIT, which might be interested in you being from California. I think all those colleges are LGBTQ friendly also. I’m not sure what field of engineering you are interested in, but remember that a major such as CS might be impacted at many of the colleges you are interested in and therefore might be reaches for all.

@NYC2018nyc SCU and NEU are private. The OP can’t apply there EA if they apply to Stanford REA.

For in-state colleges, I have SJSU, Fullerton, and CSU Long Beach, as well as 6/9 UC campuses (not SC, Merced, Riverside). As well as SLO, SCU. I did not list these in-state publics because they don’t have EA. I’m doing Electrical Engineering.

I’ve also looked at University of Utah, Purdue (but I think that’s a match school), and Pitt. Does Pitt give good merit aid to OOS Students?

Also @Lindagaf CalTech is officially test blind…https://www.admissions.caltech.edu/apply/first-year-freshman-applicants/standardized-tests

That’s fine. Don’t submit your test score if you apply to CalTech.

I believe Pitt likes to give merit to those who apply early, and I am not sure how good it is, but you can look at the scholarships they award on their website. I think they are quite generous.

In practice, the EA/ED colleges that defer lots of EA/ED applicants may be doing lots of “courtesy deferrals” of applicants who realistically have no real chance of admission, in addition to the much smaller number of true “borderline” applicants. It looks like Stanford defers only what it considers to be true “borderline” (R)EA applicants, so that those with no realistic chance of admission are rejected.

Here are some others I’ve researched but I don’t have the full merit scholarship info for:

  • Gonzaga University
  • University of Minnesota
  • Arizona State (I don’t know if I could get WUE)
  • Case Western Reserve
  • Loyola Marymount University

I don’t want to go above 20 applications, so there’s also that to consider. While I’ve already finished the first drafts of my common app and all UC Essays, I still don’t want to go extremely overboard.

ASU only offers WUE for some programs not on the main Tempe campus. Some of the other campuses appear to be mainly aimed at non-traditional or commuter students.

ASU does have a scholarship estimator at https://scholarships.asu.edu/estimator (note: “National Scholar” = National Merit Finalist or National Hispanic Recognition)

I have a shot at National merit, but seems unlikely. My index score is 219, so I have to hope that scores dropped enough in California to allow me to make it.

You would be smart to limit your apps to less than 20 (I think less than 15 is better). If Stanford is your clear favorite, I don’t think you are so far out of the ballpark for Stanford that you should not apply. You can also apply early or rolling to your out of state publics, but be sure those are affordable and provide aid to out of state students. Are you an “under represented Asian”, e.g. not Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Indian. I think middle/lower income from the Central Valley puts you on a different footing than a relatively affluent over represented Asian from NorCal or SoCal. Your Cali publics are your best bet in terms of quality, affordability and probability of admissions. I think you can afford to apply to a few truly reachy schools with generous aid since you have solid Cali backups with your stats/accomplishments.

I’m Indian/Palestinian…

This is what I have (according to my counselor’s versions of list tiers):
Safety: SJSU, CSU Long Beach
Match: Colorado School of Mines , UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC San Diego, Santa Clara University, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly SLO
Reach: UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Southern California
Lottery: Swarthmore, Stanford University, Harvard University, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
In total I think its 16 long…