<p>Ok... So I applied EA to Harvard and got deferred. I wanted to apply EA somewhere I loved, but I DIDN'T want it to be binding.</p>
<p>Now I feel like I've doomed myself to a miserable senior year.</p>
<p>I'm looking at the results of people who got in ED to my other top choices (Penn, Duke, Northwestern etc), and I feel that I would have had a WAY better chance getting into those schools ED.</p>
<p>Now I'm stuck with no acceptances, and I fear that the RD round is too tough for me to get in anywhere!</p>
<p>People say that the ED round has a high acceptance rate only because of the stronger applicant pool, but why, on naviance, does the accepted early pool have a lower GPA and SAT than the regular accepted pool!? </p>
<p>Should I have applied ED somewhere where I would have had better chances!?</p>
<p>I know it's too late now, but what is the reality? Is it REALLY true that an applicant that got in ED/EA would have also gotten in RD?</p>
<p>I’m really on the same boat. Applied to Harvard, thought I was competitive, and got deferred. Now I see my classmates getting into great schools ED and my friends saying I could have gotten in if I tried. I just keep reminding myself of why I applied to Harvard in the first place. In the wise words of steve profontaine, “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great”</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan I wasn’t ready to sign off another four years of my life just like that (with the assumption that I had a chance of getting in). I realize now that maybe that would be the best choice would have been to play it safe and ED to a safer school…</p>
<p>Word of advice to those applying SCEA/REA to HYPS:</p>
<p>Always knock out a few apps early to state schools with EA or rolling admissions (like UMich) so that you have at least a bird in hand (even if the bird isn’t as pretty as you may like) when you see peers come back with ED/EA acceptances.</p>
<p>The EA/ED pool for some schools might have marginally lower scores than the regular pool in your school’s Naviance based priority admission for athletics or some other recruited attribute that would not have helped you.</p>
<p>Hey… so this is a legit question that applicants really need to think about. </p>
<p>In any scenario, admission to Harvard/Stanford/Yale are like winning a random lottery ticket and admissions are hard to predict. Don’t lose hope but do understand now that the schools that were ED - have now filled about 1/2 their class. Take for instance at Duke - a phenomenal school by any measure - 48% of the class is now filled, and now you are looking at 30,000 applicants trying for the 900 or so remaining slots. So, statistically, admission in RD is harder. </p>
<p>ED does have a self-select quality about it… if you look at the results threads for UPenn, Duke, etc you will see that there are many very competitive, perfect to almost perfect score candidates that either got deferred there as well. So, I would not go by naviance. Schools use ED to ensure yield and even make sure they have a good student profile (ACT/SAT scores) baked in before reg round.</p>
<p>Don’t lose hope. For your RD schools, spend the time to show true passion for each school you are applying to so that the admin officer feels like you would actually accept there if offered a spot – again, schools are concerned about yield. Lastly, have many options in your RD round… add in a few more reach / just right schools so you have options at the end. </p>
<p>@StanfordWOW: @PurpleTitan is right. You chose not to apply to Harvard EA, you’ve explained your rationale, and it’s understandable. However you now have to live with the consequences of YOUR decision. That’s the way life operates (for teenagers as well as for octogenarians). You’ve stated, “I know it’s too late now” . . . and it certainly is. Therefore, you should now concentrate on your future and on RD applications that are reasonable.</p>
<p>Finally, to respond to your question, generally it is true (the ED/EA advantage provides only a marginal difference, not a substantial one).</p>
<p>I still don’t understand why you didn’t apply to Stanford early since you’ve stated multiple times that Stanford is your first choice. Bad move since that statistically would have improved your chances of admission. Now you are with everyone else in the RD pool and an acceptance rate of less than 5%. Your strategy made no sense. Now you have a Harvard deferral. Focus on the rest of your schools.</p>
<p>Take a deep breath and relax. At D’s high school, the #1 and #2 both applied to Harvard early. #2 got accepted and #1 got deferred. They seem nearly identical in qualifications and their GPA’s are separated by like a few hundredths of a grade point. So to everyone else it seems random that one got in and the other deferred. But I am sure that #1 will land someplace great. And I don’t think applying early to Stanford gives you that much of a boost if you’re not an athlete. I think statistically you were right in believing that applying early at Harvard is more advantageous than applying early at Stanford. That was the calculation made by #1 and #2 at D’s high school, and I’m sure they are both going to apply to Stanford RD. D (who is #5 and just a few hundredths of a grade point away from #1 and #2) applied ED to Pomona, got in and is very happy, but a small part of her would’ve like to have known if she would’ve gotten into the rest of the schools on her list, including Stanford.</p>