<p>Right now I have a 2130 on my SAT, a 32 on my ACT, and no subject tests. Stanford is my absolute top choice, and I had my heart set on doing REA, but the deadline is November 1 and there's only one SAT day before that. Applying RD would give me 3 SAT dates- 2 subject tests and one SAT, plus I'll have ample chances to boost my ACT score. Additionally, I was planning on doing an Independent Research project that wouldn't be finished until mid-November.</p>
<p>On the other hand, however, Stanford's Class of 17 had an ~11% acceptance rate for REA and ~4% for RD. Does the adcom give preferential treatment to REA applicants or are the applications just stronger?</p>
<p>According to Stanford (posters on here may tell you otherwise), applying REA does not increase your chances of admission. The higher REA acceptance rate is due to the extraordinary strength of the REA pool. In addition, many athletes and legacies apply early. If Stanford takes a person REA, it would have taken the same person RD and vice versa. </p>
<p>Though your scores are competitive, I would recommend waiting for regular so that you can add subject tests as well as another ACT to your application. Though subject tests are not required, they’re highly recommended. Plus, you’d have the research thing about which you posted.</p>
<p>Imagine there are many students like you. Those who can apply early would have achieve the requirement for application early on. It does have a higher acceptance rate for SCEA, but not necessary (and not likely) to have lower admission stat.</p>
<p>Stanford has a very active athletic recruiting program, and recruited athletes are advised to apply early. It substantially affects the admission percentage.</p>
<p>Best advice, apply when your application will be strongest. Stanford likes passion, so if you choose early try to get some of the research in with the app (maybe an abstract?)</p>
The vast majority of the difference in acceptance rate between EA/ED and RD is due to different applicant pools. The early pool as a whole tends to be stronger than the RD pool, and it also tends to have a higher rate of applicants with hooks. After adjusting for such differences between applicant pools, the relative chance of acceptance between the 2 groups becomes much closer. The study at <a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf</a> , which was co-authored by a Stanford professor, found a 17 to 20% increase in chance of acceptance for non-binding EA and 31 to 37% for binding ED. One would expect SCEA to be somewhere in between. Note that this expected increase is tremendously lower than the overall difference in acceptance rate between the 2 groups. </p>
<p>The numbers above were determined by averaging rates across 30 highly selective schools, one of which is Stanford. It’s possible that the study is outdated or Stanford is an anomaly that didn’t behave like typical schools and had similar acceptance rates among both groups, although the study didn’t mention this type of anomalous behavior at Stanford or any other school.</p>