Help Me Decide

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>Even though it's probably a little late right now, I'm trying to decide whether to apply Stanford EA or Normal. Note, Stanford IS my #1 choice, however after attending an informational meeting at my school the other day where the admissions officer told me that early DOES NOT give a greater statistical chance of admittance and is harder due to the stronger applicants, I have really started to rethink.</p>

<p>Anyways,
- GPA UW: 3.93/4.00
- GPA Weighted: 4.5/4.00
- Class Rank: don't know UW but weighted is top 2%ish
- Hardest Possible Senior Schedule (6 AP's, 1 independent study, taking 1 class online)
- SAT I: only took it once, received 2050 with no studying which I REALLY regret (just took it this Saturday though and I think I'm really not sure how I did but <em>hopefully</em> 2150+)
- ACT: taking it in two weeks, practice tests indicate 31-34 (inconsistent)
- SAT II's: not good, 700 Math 2C, 650 US History
- AP Tests: 6 tests taken, 4's and 5's (AP Scholar with Distinction)
- Live in an underrepresented state, in a low income family, parents are separated
- EC's: very competitive debater/forensicator (qualified for 2X nationals as well as tons of medals in both, accepted to and attended a prestigious summer institute this summer), qualified for nats. in FBLA twice (won 8th place in the nation in one event this past summer), private tutor for little kids during the school year, traveled for the past 3 summers overseas to see my dad and have taught english everytime, community service (teaching kids how to play chess, worked at 2 nursing homes for entire HS career), NHS, Spanish NHS, co-pres. of two clubs, attended the National Youth Leadership Council</p>

<p>If my SAT and SAT 2's were higher I would apply Early but because they are not I can't decide, especially since I won't know my Oct. 14 score until after the Early Deadline, and if I did bad again on the SAT I'm screwed.</p>

<p>Tell me whether you strongly think I should apply early/normal or whether you don't think it makes that big of a difference</p>

2

<p>I don't know if this will help you decide, but Stanford was my first choice and one of the big factors that convinced me to apply SCEA was that anyone with a truly legitimate chance who doesn't get in will get deferred. This means that if you're a borderline applicant and don't get in, your application gets read again during RD. </p>

<p>I kinda felt that if my application was bad enough to get rejected and not deferred/accepted EA, then I definitely wouldn't have made it RD either. So, given that I didn't care to apply anywhere else early, EA really didn't have any drawbacks.</p>

3

<p>do you think you'll have much of an improvement by the normal deadline? i'd save everything if i could make a substantial improvement by the time the normal deadline comes. a stanford rep came to visit houston and cleared up some misconceptions about EA, like its harder(they usually judge their students on same standard for ea or normal), better chance of getting in(ea applicants are generally more prepared, so the likelyhood of ea vs regular is a little higher) etc.</p>

<p>if i was totally unsure, i would just wait for the normal decision to clear my mind and get everything as best as it could</p>