<p>How much would you say a person could benefit from applying early action as opposed to regular action? Is it really that much more beneficial, or is it all the same in the eyes of the admissions committee? Besides getting your acceptance/rejection letter earlier, what are the advantages?</p>
<p>The advantage is that there is usually a higher acceptance rate.</p>
<p>However, the disadvantage is that the pool tends to be more self-selective.</p>
<p>I once read in a statistical study that while ED applicants tend to have slightly lower SAT averages than the RD pool, EA applicants tend to have slightly higher scores.</p>
<p>The reason is because if accepted ED, you commit yourself to the school while if you're accepted EA, the school commits itself to you since you don't have to go there.</p>
<p>EA = harder, a lot of deferrals</p>
<p>ED = deferral usually means rejection, easier because school knows they have 100% yield</p>
<p>So the fact that EA is harder would that mean that RA would be easier to get into the school?</p>
<p>If your stats arent in the top of the applicant pool for a school (especially schools known as conservative EA takers, such as Notre Dame and Boston College, among others, you are better off applying RD</p>
<p>Well thank you. That was the type of answer I needed.</p>
<p>ckmets13,
Can you tell me why we should apply RD to schools known as conservative like Boston College,... Do you think that we should apply EA/ED to our dream school because if we are deferred, we can do our best to prove to the adcoms that we're really interested in that school and we will strengthen our application?</p>
<p>^Ya, can't EA only help? Even if you do get defered there's still the demonstrated interest factor that'll help in the RD round, isn't there? And, applicants aren't usually rejected outright in EA, or are they?</p>
<p>schools like BC and ND, i think GTown and Nova as well (it seems to be common to catholic schools) will defer you, and the defferal admit rate is lower than the RD admit rate. ND may reject you EA if you have lower stats, when you might have a better chance if you are being compared to the entire applicant pool, some of which might be much lower and only applying because they want to see Brady Quinn lead ND to a championship. BC isnt quite as harsh, but ive known good applicants (11/450, 1350 SAT) to be deferred, and then there is a chance you may not get in due to the large volume of RD apps. Its better just to be compared to one pool of applicants than two in this case.</p>
<p>But that's for ND and BC. What about other schools like Harvard and Stanford?</p>
<p>harvard and stanford are SCEA, which is very close to ED (only difference being that you arent bound to go there). So the yield rates will definitely be higher than a non-restrictive EA program, but not as high as the 100% yield generated by ED. Therefore, it is generally thought of to be a slight advantage to apply SCEA to HYS, but it wont increase your chances by much, if any. It just lets them know that they are your first choice, which is good for them (especially Yale, which loses many cross admits to harvard), which might up your chances very slightly. By all means, if you want to go to HYS as your first choice, apply SCEA</p>
<p>Actually for students who expect better grades in the first semester of 12th grade EA, isnt a wise choice, because if you wait and do RA the colleges can see the improvement and also SAT scores of tests taken in NOvember or December. I learned this the hard way</p>
<p>And there's no financial risk applying SCEA to a need-blind, no merit aid school, right?? (Stanford)</p>
<p>I don't see financial risk in applying SCEA to need-blind, no merit aid school.</p>
<p>Regular decision might be better if you want to wait a bit for more awards, test scores, etc.</p>
<p>What would you guys recommend for Rice and UChicago? I'm currently planning on applying EA to both because I'd like early replies, but after reading this thread, I'm not so sure...</p>
<p>My GPA is 3.9, top 10%, SAT around 2140. Not much ECs, the most vigorous curriculum my school has to offer.</p>
<p>I'm bumping this because I really want an answer.</p>