<p>Hi everyone, I've come up with a list of schools for myself, but there's one school I don't think I have a chance of being accepted with my credentials - Princeton. </p>
<p>I don't really wanna go on about what my credentials are, but just know that my extracurriculars are well below par compared to strong applicants with hours on top of hours of volunteer service and internships and science competitions, etc. I feel like all I have is a 32 ACT and a 3.85 GPA, which does not set me apart at all. </p>
<p>Now, I'm all for taking a chance and pressing my luck applying regular decision, but would applying early (Single Choice Early Action) be a waste?</p>
<p>Do you have other private schools that you want to apply EA? (i.e. schools for which you agree not to apply EA to if you apply SCEA to Princeton)</p>
<p>Why do your parents want you to apply SCEA to Princeton?</p>
<p>It would be a waste is there’s someplace else that really is your first choice.</p>
<p>If there isn’t, then SCEA is a whole lot better route than Early Decision, since you wouldn’t be obliged to take any action on an acceptance until April, and you could still choose to go elsewhere if you wanted to. An Early Decision application to a college that isn’t your clear favorite would be a really bone-headed thing to do.</p>
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<p>I don’t see how this advice applies to an SCEA school. You’d be under no obligation to enroll or to withdraw any other applications if you were offered admission. I think, if you can’t identify somewhere that you’d rather go, then the only downside of SCEA is that you couldn’t apply early action to any other private college or university.</p>
<p>I forgot to add that the main reason I am against applying early to Princeton is an opportunity to further improve my application. </p>
<p>I am taking SAT subject tests for the first time in October, and I could possibly need November or December to retake the SAT (which is wayy below Ivy league applicants, but does it help to have both a strong SAT and ACT?). </p>
<p>I just want to be sure that the applications I am sending out to Princeton (and other schools on my list) are applications are my best efforts with time well spent on essays and preparing for tests. </p>
<p>My parents are pushing for SCEA since they believe I am more likely to be accepted if I apply early. Is that even true?</p>
<p>I’ve gone through my list of schools thoroughly and I am convinced I will be happy wherever I end up, so I will not be applying ED (money will also play a factor).</p>
<p>It may be true. There are statistics for Princeton for last year showing that they admitted about 18% of those who applied early and 5.5% of those who applied regular. But it’s important to realize that the groups of people who applied SCEA and RD may differ. The SCEA applicants may be more qualified, may include more recruited athletes and legacies, etc.</p>
<p>Marian is right in that the Early pool is generally better and consists of students who really want to be at Princeton. Admissions officers look for the same quality applicants in the Early pool as they do regular. It wouldn’t really make sense to relax the standards during Early Action (admit more unqualified students) and risk having to deny seats to more qualified students in the regular round. That would lower the overall statistics of the class and top-tier schools love their high statistics. </p>
<p>So, if you really like Princeton and believe that it is the right fit for you, then you should apply SCEA, since you know you’ll go if you get in, so that would let you enjoy the last half of your senior year without worrying about college (if you get in). If you’re not sure about Princeton and would apply to other places even if you got in SCEA, then I don’t see the point in doing SCEA in the first place. You could take the extra time to make your application that much better and submit it with the regular decisions round, to the same effect.</p>
Princeton has an acceptance rate of about 8% for students with GPA/SAT similar to yours, which is similar to their overall admit rate. You don’t necessarily need ECs, but you need something to separate yourself from the >10,000 other apps with similar GPA/SAT or I’d expect your odds of acceptance are extremely low, regardless of whether you apply early or not.</p>
<p>I also agree with the comments of asking why you want to go to Princeton. If you and/or your parents’ primary concern is just that the school be a member of a particular athletic conference in the Northeast, then there are others besides Princeton where you’d have better odds of acceptance.</p>
<p>You mentioned risking lower stats. The stat that I’d expect to vary the most between the early and regular groups is yield. ED/SCEA have a much higher rate of accepted students that choose to attend than RD. Many selective colleges care both about yield and about whether they are a first choice or just a backup/safety.</p>
<p>“So, if you really like Princeton and believe that it is the right fit for you, then you should apply SCEA”</p>
<p>I disagree. OP’s rationale for waiting to apply RD is sound. He/She wants to boost GPA/test scores and submit the best possible package. That’s definitely one of the reasons to not apply EA/ED at any school.</p>
<p>IMHO, this reason is solid versus the hazy “boost” one might receive applying SCEA to PTon.</p>
<p>Data10, that’s very interesting. I would expect SCEA to be closer to the 17-20% boost, since it is essentially non-binding EA. The study was also conducted before Princeton and Harvard reinstituted their early action programs. I would be interested in whether the data used in the study is outdated, since college admissions has seen record low acceptance rates in the past few years, especially. In either case, a 17-20% boost of an already low acceptance rate (~8%) is almost negligible. Definitely not enough to warrant applying early if you’re not sure. </p>
<p>Also, remember that Princeton accepts test scores even after you submit your EA package. If you re-take your exams in November, you can send them directly to Princeton to be considered. Applying during the SCEA round just tells Princeton that you really want to be there and will probably matriculate if you’re accepted, which is a good thing for them. And if you’re deferred in that round, then you can still submit the rest of your re-take scores and have that considered. Princeton superscores. </p>
<p>Also note that given the one and a half month time span between SCEA and RD application deadlines, I don’t see how OP could make much of a change in ECs and GPA. Even one more semester of grades will only make a very small impact on GPA. For instance, taking 7 classes per semester, another semester of straight A’s would only boost OP’s GPA by 0.02, to 3.87. Another month of ECs, either the same ones or new ones, will hardly make a difference. Thus, the only “solid” rationale would be to raise the ACT score, which, IMO, is already high enough. OP could also, like I said, retake in October or November and submit those directly to Princeton. So, it should boil down to whether OP really wants to be at Princeton. If the mentality is, “If I get in, I’ll definitely/most likely go and not have to go through applying to a whole lot of other schools”, then it is definitely worth it. If OP is going to apply to a whole lot of other schools even if he/she gets in, then EA may not be the best option.</p>
<p>SCEA may give a greater boost than regular EA, because SCEA means that the applicant agrees not to apply EA to any school that the SCEA school would consider a peer in the cross-admit competition* – i.e. the applicant is not applying just in hopes of getting an EA admission safety, but is actually showing interest in the school.</p>
<p>*Note that the usual SCEA exceptions allowing EA applications to public schools, rolling admission schools, and early deadline for scholarship schools are typically for schools that HYPS rarely lose cross-admit competitions to. They appear to be mainly concerned that the applicant is interested in that school relative to the other super-selective private schools.</p>
Reading the study in more detail, the ~2400 participants were all top students at well known high schools. The participants had an admit rate that was 2-3x the overall admit rate for 28 selective colleges that were averaged. The boost for EA/ED was phrased as, </p>
<p>*“An early action application is associated with a 17 to 20 percentage point increase in admission probability, and an early decision application with a 31 to 37 percentage point increase.” *</p>
<p>“Percentage point increase” makes it sound like they mean a student who had 40% chance would increase 20 percentage points to 60%, rather than the 40% chance increases by 20% to 48%. </p>
<p>Considering the unique top student at well known HS survey group and highly varied admission rate between the different colleges that were averaged in the survey, it is more meaningful to compare the benefit to EA/ED to other measured variables. They found the benefit to EA was almost exactly the same as the benefit to increasing the math or verbal SAT by 100 points. ED was ~170 points. The table below shows approximately how many math/verbal SAT points various measured qualities were worth among the surveyed students:</p>
<p>Applying ED: +170
Applying EA: +100
Home State: +90
+100 Points on SAT II: +50
Attending Private High School: +30
+1 EC on 5-point scale where 2=ordinary and 4=superior : +25
Applying for Financial Aid: +5
Being Male: -5</p>
<p>The 28 colleges that were averaged together to create the above stats included the most selective schools, such as Stanford and Harvard, as wells as less selective than HYPSM colleges, like Boston College and NYU. I expect the home state benefit varied widely among specific colleges that were included, such as UVA. EA/ED benefits also likely varied significantly between specific colleges.</p>
<p>I made a mistake with my reported GPA in this thread. I never calculated it until today and assumed it was between 3.8 and 3.9 unweighted. Turned out to be a 3.93 - I know that doesn’t change much, but I just felt like I should note that. If it helps, my high school is in the top 15 public high schools in NJ (USNews Ranking).</p>
<p>The early Avery article everyone is discussing uses data from the 1998-1999 admissions season, 15 years and some major demographic changes ago. Also, although the methodology of the survey that furnished the data may have partially corrected for the athletes/legacies problem, the survey did not actually try to screen out “hooked” early applicants, so that the early admissions numbers it produced are still probably inflated relative to the chances of normal, academic applicants.</p>
<p>I am not going to argue that there isn’t some kind of EA boost, but 17-20 actual percentage points . . . no.</p>
<p>Data10, you’d already conceded that the OP’s “odds of acceptance are extremely low”. Now you’re saying that if he/she applies early, his chances of admission could be boosted by 17-20 percentage points? That would seem to defeat your original argument, as a 17-20 percentage boost of an 8% admit rate would give the OP an exceedingly sharp edge in admissions. A 28% chance of being admitted is extremely high - certainly not “extremely low”. </p>
<p>Also, speaking from personal experience, you don’t necessarily need to separate yourself from other applicants in the sense that you’re using the term. You do need to show distinction, but distinction in your own way. Princeton recognizes that people are different and have access to different resources. For instance, if you went to a small rural high school, you don’t have to distinguish yourself from people who went to Thomas Jefferson. You don’t have to distinguish yourself in terms of entering Siemens, Intel, etc. competitions if you simply weren’t exposed to those things in your school. You just have to distinguish yourself in terms of your background and show them why you’re unique. I know many people around here who had never heard of the Math/Science Olympiads, who never entered those prestigious competitions, who didn’t make the national orchestra. However, these people showed extraordinary drive and made the most out of their high school experience. And that’s all it took.</p>
<p>OP, if your GPA is 3.93, then getting another semester-worth of A’s (assuming a 7-class schedule), would only raise your GPA to 3.94 - in other words, negligible. If Princeton is your first choice, I see no point in not applying early.</p>
<p>I guess I will apply early - I mean if my chances are already low and I can’t change much about it, I’ll take a chance the suggested “boost”. I just hope I can ace my subject tests.</p>