<p>So right now I am trying to decide where to apply early and Yale is on my shortlist. I have a 2220, 3.89 uw gpa, a lot of ec's, and a few college credits already. However, coming from a northeast prep school, I feel as if my application is very standard for Yale. The only "cool" things I really have is my theater participation at school and perhaps my college courses. So, it is realistic for me to think I have a shot at Yale EA? Or should I perhaps focus my search on less selective institutions. Thanks for your time.</p>
<p>From what you’ve posted, you sound like a competitive but not necessarily an outstanding candidate. And while not everyone agrees, I think that the advantage of EA at Y goes to exceptional applicants who would be accepted out of ANY pool of candidates:</p>
<p>This gives Y several extra months to try to win over the hearts and minds of these students, who are likely to be admitted to other highly selective colleges if they choose to apply in the RD round. </p>
<p>I think for an applicant like you, the question is not so much “is this your first choice school?” as this is EA, not ED. But rather the question should be, “are there any other EA schools that you are also interested in attending?”.</p>
<p>For instance, a qualified but not exceptional applicant who likes Y but is also interested in UChicago and MIT might choose to apply EA to both UChicago and MIT rather than SCEA to Y. </p>
<p>For my kids, they didn’t have other EA schools that they liked, all their other schools had only ED and because of financial considerations, they weren’t going to apply anywhere ED. They both ended up applying SCEA to Y, not necessarily because it was their top choice, but because it was the only EA school they liked.</p>
<p>IMO, where you apply EA/ED is a strategy, and you need to figure out the best strategy for you given your school list, finances, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses everyone. Entomom, I have considered Georgetown, Chicago, and Stanford as other early action schools. However, I definitely like Yale the most out of all of them. Furthermore, of the ED schools I like, Brown and Williams, I also prefer Yale. I am just worried that I would have a much better chance at both of those schools ED than I do EA at Yale. However, as of right now I am leaning towards early action for Yale because I like it the most. Also, I got a 98 junior year in AP US, got an A in a Middle East history class at Penn, and got the professor to write me a letter of recommendation. I plan on majoring in history in college. Does the letter of recommendation and shown performance in history help my chances at all for Yale? Yale’s history major looks amazing and is one of the main reasons that it is my top school right now.</p>
I would agree that you have a much better chance at Williams since their ED acceptance rate is 43.45% but Brown (19.05%) is very close to Yale (15.68%) and your stats do not put you in the top of the applicants. If you had a 4.0 UW GPA and >2300 SAT it would be different. FYI, the top 25% of the Yale applicants had a 2380 SAT and 35 ACT average.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply Kdog. My relatively low gpa is due to my only B+, which was calc bc. I skipped a grade ahead in math at my school, so my counselor told me not to worry about the b+ as I was much ahead of other kids at my school. But I do realize that I’m a long-shot for admissions, but I feel as long as there is a chance, why not go for it?</p>
<p>The choice of where to apply early is entirely up to you. But given the well researched, experienced feedback you’ve gotten and your replies to them, I tend to wonder why you asked in the first place. </p>
<p>No offense, but what’s the point in asking this:</p>
<p>I guess I just wanted confirmation of what I was already thinking. All summer long I have been flip-flopping, but I think I finally know what I’m gonna do. Thanks for all the help guys!</p>