Should I refrain from applying early?

<p>I'm applying early to Stanford, but recently I've begun to reconsider. I've been thinking about retaking my SATs and SAT IIs. I know I'll be retaking my SAT 2 in November, but I'm worried that Stanford won't get them in time. Do you think I could still get in early if they didn't get them?</p>

<p>UW GPA: 3.98</p>

<p>SAT:2180 [700CR, 690M, 790W]</p>

<p>SAT 2: Haven't gotten them back from October. </p>

<p>Class Rank: 13/270 (Top 5%)</p>

<p>Race: African-American</p>

<p>Hooks (?): I'm a dual citizen. Is that a hook? I'm also from a very low economic background ($<30,000) per year. (Though I heard that they won't see that.)</p>

<p>APs taken throughout High school: 8</p>

<p>AP Scores: N/A-Didn't know that FA was available for them and by the time I knew, it was the deadline for the ones I would take. </p>

<p>Awards: Scholastic and Writing Awards Silver Key (National Award)
Regional Award for Newspaper
National Achievement Award </p>

<p>ECS:
MUN (9-12) General Ambassador
French Club (9-12) and French National Honor Society officer
NHS (10-12) officer
Museum of Science Volunteer
Interned at Medical Hospital in Africa
Newspaper (11-12)- Editor-in-Chief
Math, French, and English Tutor
French Summer School Volunteer
Internship @ Gov. Office (11)</p>

<p>I also kind of feel like my ECs are all over the place. I was interested in different things at different moments of my HS career and so I looked for opportunities to express those interests-- though I feel like it come off in unfortunate way do an adcom.</p>

<p>Stanford is fine to have as a reach but what’s your safeties?</p>

<p>@Catria
No worries about that.
I’m applying to a couple safeties :)</p>

<p>bump…</p>

<p>2180 as AA puts you way above top 1% for this group and will make you a solid candidate at Stanford. You can clue Stanford in about your socieo-economic status through an essay. EC’s look good. My only reservation re Stanford is class rank. Top 5% is really good, but Stanford usually looks for vals, sals or top 1%. Do you go to a neighborhood school or a competitive public/private hs. If the latter, your rank is fine. If the former, Stanford might wonder why your rank is not even higher. Also, what APs did you take? There is a perceived difference in AP rigor (ie psych v. Physics C). Assuming, you have taken Calculus b/c, a science ap, and four years of a language, you should be fine in that regard.</p>

<p>Overall, in my view, you have a realistic shot at Stanford, and this is a good use of SCEA.</p>

<p>I go to a competitive public high school. I haven’t take AP Calc BC; I’m actually in Calc AB this year. But I have taken AP science classes and language. My school doesn’t allow us to take AP classes until junior year. Including this year, I’ve taken AP Stat, AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Calc AB, AP French, AP US history, and AP Euro History.</p>

<p>SAT-wise, I heard that it would hurt me that writing is my highest score. I heard that a lot of top colleges don’t put a lot of weight behind a high writing score. Is that true?</p>

<p>Not sure why writing being highest would ‘hurt’ you. Not all schools use it, which is a shame for kids with great score there. The more selective ones my D is looking at do use it, and I imagine Stanford does too in one way or another. There is a school of thought that says its the part of the SAT which best predicts college success, too. Again, not sure where Standord sits on that but certainly I can’t see a high writing score negatively impacting you.</p>