<p>Last year’s early action: 4692 applied, 992 accepted
This year’s early action: 5919 applied, 977 accepted</p>
<p>Wow, this year was so insanely competitive.</p>
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<p>Wow!! 26.2% jump in applications.</p>
<p>A 26% increase in applications!! Exactly what I had been predicting given the comparatively juicy 21% acceptance rate they had last year after increasing the number of early admits by some 220 students over the prior two years. </p>
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<p>I mentioned this in early Dec. and was chastised for it but it was hard to ignore the sudden surge of SCEA posters.</p>
<p><a href=“977 admitted to Class of 2019 under Early Action – Harvard Gazette”>977 admitted to Class of 2019 under Early Action – Harvard Gazette;
<p>Is that usual, to have such a high amount of deferred? Do most schools do that in EA/ED? Or is is usual for EA but not ED?</p>
<p>This makes the Harvard SCEA results thread make more sense then. Not one denial on that thread, but only 10% of SCEA applicants were denied so that makes sense (even considering the first thing someone denied would not do is post on CC…).</p>
<p>Several Ivies defer 75% of the kids. OTOH, Stanford rejects 80%.</p>
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Not for Harvard, which has been deferring most early applicants since SCEA was reinstated.</p>
<p>Saw it coming as well…makes deferral sting a bit less</p>
<p>Thank god I applied early last year. This year’s numbers are a lot scarier (probably as a result of the high SCEA acceptance rate last year and the many recent widely-publicized donations to the school).</p>
<p>^^ Yes, and I heard that Harvard really stepped up their targeted mailings and outreach. Speculation is that they don’t like being referred to as the “Stanford of the East”.</p>
<p>I really wish that Harvard would reject a few more in the early round. It’s a philosophical thing, and I get where they’re coming from, but I disagree. I think more kids could benefit from a clear message.</p>
<p>^^ I agree. I think Harvard should be more like Stanford and reject most of the students they don’t accept SCEA. </p>
<p>I thought Stanford process was always brutal on young minds and advise most people not to apply early.</p>
<p>I was surprised to find out Northwestern also practices this. That is a lot worse telling people who are committing to show up if admitted to forget about it.</p>
<p>If the school knows for sure that the kid is not getting in, which is to say that kid isn’t even going to get waitlisted in the spring round, I say rip off that band-aid. If the kid is in shouting distance, sure, give them another look in April, but we know there are a lot of people who are never, never going to get into these schools.</p>
<p>Look, I’ve been irritated by ED rejections before. A couple of years back, Vanderbilt rejected one of my students ED who was a perfectly plausible candidate. The student ended up getting into Northwestern and other Vandy peers. I thought that was a bit much. But Harvard goes too far in the other direction. I’d like to see middle ground. Can it really be impossible to say that 20% of the pool that has no shot in April? It’s hard to believe.</p>
<p>Theoretically speaking, if Harvard were to admit everyone from early round only when RD came around and took no one from RD, they have exactly 1100 spots or less.</p>
<p>So based on that premise, they should have turned down another 3000+ kids.</p>
<p>I agree with @Hanna. If a student has zero chance in the Spring, Harvard is not doing him or her any favors by keeping hope for an admission alive. It’s better for the student to shift focus to other schools. </p>
<p>Harvard SCEA acceptances/applications 977 / 5919
Stanford SCEA acceptances/applications 743 / 7297</p>
<p>As a student who got deferred who thinks they are a “reasonable” candidate (nothing “spectacular” like most of the people you see getting admitted, but in my own opinion I think I have pretty typical stats of a competitive Harvard applicant), I think being deferred was actually the logical thing to have happen to me and many others…I do agree that Harvard could be a bit harsher though with rejections, so that being deferred would feel a little better than it does at the moment (right now it feels like I just have to wait four months for either a miracle or my official rejection)</p>