<p>Hey guys. Contrary to my name, my number one choice is now Yale. I love everything about the school and would really like to go there. Check out my "chance me" thread for my stats. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on early action pro's and con's. I am going to apply EA just to show my interest and have a better chance of admission. Thanks</p>
<p>No thoughts???</p>
<p>If you are accepted, it is as awesome as EA gets and you can be really laid back for your RD, if you go into RD at all; it really takes the pressure off. If you are rejected, you know that something in your application did not work for Yale adcoms and you may want to give it another look before RD, but you have no idea if it was any major blunder or if it was just because it’s Yale. If you are deferred, you are stuck in a limbo, not knowing if your application very nearly sucked or merely very nearly missed the mark, with only in-state public schools’ acceptances if you are lucky or nothing at all if you are not.</p>
<p>In hindsight, the prospect of applying to a couple more EA schools instead of SCEA seems way more rational. Then again, I would have missed this opportunity to know that the dream is totally coming true, no matter what happens by the end of March. But there is no way to know if you will be in fact granted that opportunity; indeed, to us applicants, the process appears quite random.</p>
<p>(My inner geek suggests an elementary mathematical method. If you could come up with a utility value V for all EA schools, including Yale, and a probability P of being accepted EA, then your decision would hinge on the validity of the statement that P(Yale)<em>V(Yale) > sum of all instances of P(EA school)</em>V(EA school). Obviously, difficulties arise when you try to assign utility values - and if you created a chance thread, you know that we could not predict the accurate probability of admission for anyone if our lives depended on it. But it would be elegant if it could work 
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<p>First off, Yale doesn’t consider demonstrated interest, and despite the higher acceptance rate, SCEA is not easier to get in to than RD.</p>
<p>Honestly, unless you’re hooked or have some activity/award that will help you stand out from the rest of the qualified SCEA applicants, I wouldn’t recommend using your early applications on Yale, but instead, I would apply to some of your match/safety schools so that you know you will be in somewhere no matter what. That said, if you don’t have any schools that you’re really interested in applying early to, then you might decide that you want to go ahead and give Yale SCEA a shot, because you never know, you might get in December and take a big load off your college stress</p>
<p>I would say no. Like the people above me said, it’s wonderful if you get accepted, but because it’s Yale, the likelihood is very slim. I applied SCEA and got deferred, so I’m still stuck in Limbo. Yale was kind of a what the hell school, even though i do have a good shot. In hindsight, I probably would have applied EA to more schools (Chicago, MIT, etc.) or even ED to Rice. But now it’s too late and I’m stuck waiting. But I feel like it’s all super personal. You’ll know what you should do. 91shippy brought up some great points about using it to access any problems with your app, and it is nice to have that thought out of your head by December. But being deferred kinda sucks. If you have any more questions or just want to chat about it PM me.</p>
<p>Best thing in the world if accepted.</p>
<p>but</p>
<p>I shudder to think of the acceptance rate for: non legacy, non athlete, non international research, etc etc… </p>
<p>Basically, if you get accepted EA you would have got accepted RD, so unless you are pretty confident, maybe use the EA apps to some schools that do take into account demonstrated interest. This of course coming from someone who did not heed his own advice.</p>
<p>I just went with how I felt in october - if I felt good; Yale. If not, I was going to do dartmouth and some other places for EA.</p>
<p>In retrospect, no. My Yale app is much weaker than my RD apps because I had less time to work on it and I didn’t have the experience of submitting an app beforehand. I should have used EA for schools that aren’t my first choice. I guess I’ll find out in April if it made a difference or not.</p>
<p>And like others have said, applying SCEA doesn’t show interest or increase your chances.</p>
<p>Remember, early action often doesn’t give an applicant the kind of admissions boost that binding early decision does.</p>
<p>If you are accepted under binding early decision, the college knows it’s got you. There’s something in it for you–you’re accepted to a college you really wanted to attend–but there’s also something significant in it for the college. They know you’re going to occupy that slot they’ve offered you. It’s good for their yield.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’re accepted under early action, they’ve offered you a spot and now they can’t offer that spot to somebody from the RD pool, even if it turns out they like that RD person better than you. They’ve made an offer in January, but you don’t have to tell them whether you’ll take them up on it until May 1. Many selective colleges that offer EA make admissions offers only to EA applicants that they really, really want.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, if you’re accepted under early action, they’ve offered you a spot and now they can’t offer that spot to somebody from the RD pool, even if it turns out they like that RD person better than you.”</p>
<p>That’s not how it works; there’s no one-to-one correspondence. Most school offer EA and RD spots to a few times the number of matriculants they want (the “yield” issue). Liking an RD applicant affects other offers made at RD time.</p>
<p>Well, no, it isn’t exactly how it works, but I think it remains true that the schools have incentives to be relatively generous with ED admissions and relatively stingy with EA admissions.</p>
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<p>True, as stated by Ys Dean of Admissions:</p>
<p>[Early</a> admit rate rises slightly | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/]Early”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/)</p>
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<p>Thanks for the thoughts guys! Yale is a reach for anyone, but I feel I have a pretty good chance. :)</p>
<p>It depends I think on your personality, especially with regards to risk taking. I tried very hard to convince my son to apply to several non restrictive EA programs and bag some acceptances in December to feel secure even though it meant waiting until April to hear from his top choice (Yale). But he is a “go big or go home” kind of kid, and has been pretty much his whole life.</p>
<p>I made him look at the SCEA acceptance graph for 2014 about 5 times (730 acceptances 4400ish deferrals/rejections) and he still was firm on what he wanted to do. I think it’s a volatile combination of being a teenage boy somewhat unaware of his own limitations added together with an intense desire to get what he wants. But the other thing about this kid, is that kind of drive is an intricate part of his being, and maybe Yale sees that in applications and likes to see that in some of the kids they accept SCEA. </p>
<p>I know that had he not been accepted, while our household would have been extremely unpleasant to live in for a week or two, he would never say he regretted doing it. So that’s the question you have to answer for yourself, can you live with the “go home” part of the “go big or go home” equation? Are you a risk taker or do you feel better hedging your bets? What feels right in your gut?</p>
<p>I am a very big risk taker. I have an inexorable drive for success and a passion for excellence. I believe my essay enlightens those attributes very well. I hope Yale thinks so too!</p>
<p>I would say do it if you have your app done in time, and don’t do it if you don’t. But it isn’t worth it to rush to get it done just so you can have it in for EA because it really doesn’t make that much of a difference. To me, the upside is knowing the result earlier, but aside from that it’s not the kind of thing you should be rushing to do. I knew that I wasn’t going to be done my common app in time to do any EAs (it took me a while to settle on a common app essay topic) so I just decided to do everything RD. If you have your common app done and it comes down to the supps, some supps require more time and thought than others. I spent a while on Yale’s. Some people might not have needed as much time. But just give yourself as much time as you need for the app, and submit it whenever you feel like you’re done. When it’s not ED it’s not worth stressing over.</p>