<p>So, as a rising high school senior I am actually quite excited for the college admissions process, but I am not sure where to apply early.</p>
<p>After visiting the east coast schools with my family this summer, I feel in love with several schools, and I am currently looking at applying to either Harvard or Yale SCEA. But, I have also explored the option of applying EA to Notre Dame, Georgetown, UChicago, Boston College, and maybe a few others.</p>
<p>I have strong grades and unique extracurriculars with several leadership positions. Of course, I know there are thousands of other applicants that are just as good as me, if not better, that will be applying to the same schools.</p>
<p>Is there a major benefit to applying to Harvard or Yale SCEA, or should I apply to the other schools EA where I will have a better chance to get in? Ultimately, I would rather end up at Harvard or Yale, but at the same time I would love to have an acceptance at a strong school under my belt by September.</p>
<p>I think I read somewhere that specifically Harvard, doesn’t “weigh more” or give you a boost by applying EA. But to be honest, I say apply EA to as many as you can- it doesn’t hurt, and you’ll hopefully find out a few months earlier vs. you applying regular =P I know I applied EA to four, and it felt nice knowing I had gotten in to at least one xD</p>
<p>So, would you guys recommend applying to several of the top-level regular EA schools, or apply to one school (Harvard or Yale) using Restrictivd EA?</p>
<p>@imaginarylight, ya isn’t it a tough choice? If you’re to do MIT you can also apply to many other strong schools early, whereas if you do Princeton (or in my case Harvard or Yale) we can only do one. I’ve been waiting so long for the college application/admission process, but now I’m stumped, haha.</p>
<p>Harvard is going to be tough to analyze, since this will be the first year of their SCEA program. (btw, a poster in another thread claims that you can apply to Harvard SCEA and still apply to state schools EA – think Michigan, and a few other top notch state schools. At least check out whether this is Harvard’s policy).</p>
<p>Otherwise – most of the top schools have posted their Common Data Sets – look these up and you’ll see the admissions statistics for regular decision and ed/ea. If the acceptance rate is significantly higher ed/ea, it probably provides some edgh.</p>
<p>What to do – no real answer. However, if you have the grades where Harvard or Yale are target schools for you, and if one is your first choice, I would personally apply scea. If your scores are that good, you will almost certainly get into a top 15 school at the end of the day (so long as you apply to enough of them, and take the process seriously). So, maximize your shot at a dream.</p>
<p>If your goal is to get a top tier admission under your belt by December, then the statistics say to skip Yale or Harvard’s SCEA round with a <14% admit rate amongst a more competitive pool than the RD round. If you know that a SCEA admit to Yale or Harvard will cause you to skip applications to many other schools, saving you time and money, then it may be the right choice for you. This assumes you have the discipline to wait until December 15 to write and submit other match/safety applications before those RD deadlines. You don’t even need to pose this as several EA applications vs. a single SCEA one. Will the higher admit rate of an EA “reach” school likely give you more peace of mind come January than the lower admit rate of a “super reach” school? To complicate matters this year, you may assume Harvard and Princeton’s SCEA admit policies will mirror those of Yale but since this program is newly instituted there this fall, that may not be correct.</p>