should i do stanford rea or northwestern ed? do i stand a chance?

College Search & Selection
1

okay… i know everyone hates ‘chance me’ threads… but I’m a senior applying early to either stanford or northwestern.
my stats are: 3.8 uw, 4.5 w, 1530 sat (800 math) and 35 act. nothing great when applying to colleges this selective. i have two extracurriculars that i love: robotics and dance, and honestly couldn’t imagine life without them. i’ve made significant strides in robotics (helped our team get an award that got us to world championships, got dean’s list finalist, got several sponsors for our team including crayola!!!) and dance is something i hope to continue in college, and am considering joining a dance team in college. I’ve taught dance and won competitions. my essays are pretty personal and genuine.

i’m from the east coast (nj) but distance from home isn’t really in issue. i’m grateful because finances aren’t either, and my family has enough saved so I could afford one of these schools (they’ve been saving since before i was born, haha). my state school is terrific, but i do want to go out of state just to experience something new. i’ve been living in the same town for nearly 18 years, and i just want to meet new people with different views and perspectives.
major i would apply for at each school: stanford - symbolic systems (interdisciplinary program, similar to cognitive science at many schools)
northwestern -computer engineering or statistics (or maybe both?)
i’m attracted to these specific schools because they aren’t strictly tech schools, but they are strong all around i’ve always loved latin and greek, and I would love to minor or even double major in classics. sometimes (not always) i think that stem majors are viewed as better than other majors, and I don’t want to be around people with that mentality. this is not to say that all people at tech schools believe this and that no one at northwestern or stanford think this way, but it’s just a general trend i’ve seen. i could be completely wrong.

anyway, I don’t know what’s the best fit for me here. my parents are pushing cornell (close to home with solid programs all around) but i can’t see myself being happy in such a rural area. i love people and lots of them, so i think ithaca is just too small. but if anyone from a big city goes to cornell/a rural school, please let me know your thoughts and how you adjusted! my parents don’t think it’s a big deal, especially since most of my time would be spent on campus anyway, but i don’t know how i feel about going to a college town even smaller than the tiny suburb i grew up in. but ithaca is truly gorges, so i am not eliminating it completely.

that’s it. if you read this far, thank you, and I appreciate all opinions.

2

I don’t know anything about Stanford but from what you wrote, you’d be a great fit for Northwestern. I think you would really like the quarter system as it allows more flexibility with double majoring. (I think Stanford is on quarters too?)

That said, I’m a Cornell grad and loved my time there. There was so much happening on campus that I never felt the need to go anywhere else (unless it was to Boston for hockey playoffs). Lots of art, culture, sports, etc…

However, Chicago is an amazing city, there is a free shuttle from NW to the city to the medical campus on the gold coast.

Honestly I don’t think you can go wrong with these options and only you can decide where you see the best fit.

(Be sure to have matches and safeties on your list too!)

3

Well…looking at the common data set for Northwestern, the admit rate for ED is almost 27% while the RD rate is about 9%. Stanford doesn’t publish their numbers but has said in the past that the rates are the same. So…while it is true that some of the ED admits are “hooked,” I think you increase your admission odds significantly with Northwestern ED.

4

Different schools use ED and other restricted early admissions for different reasons…places like Stanford that are many people’s first choice, tend to use it to accept exceptional people they they really want and whom they know for sure would get accepted in RD. Other schools, even ones that are great, are sometimes used as a backup to other great schools. Northwestern is kind of in this position. They don’t want a bunch of students who are going to spend 4 yrs complaining about how they didn’t get into an Ivy–they want students who really want to be there. So in their ED round it’s not unusual for them to relax the standards a bit to get people who have, in effect, named it as their first choice (by choosing it as their ED school). Bottom line is that for someone with your stats, it would be a LOT smarter to apply ED to Northwestern.

5

Another vote for Northwestern. I agree that ED there will give you more of a boost than SCEA at Stanford.

Columbia and Penn are urban schools with good STEM and Classics programs, and Columbia/Barnard is a great option for dance. Are they too close to NJ for your taste?