<p>I am almost 100% applying to Yale SCEA this fall as it is my dream school. My biggest concern is that I am giving up applying to multiple schools EA over applying to Yale SCEA. Does applying SCEA improve admission chances, or am I better off applying places EA and applying to Yale RD? I'm not just talking about percentage admitted but applicant pool keeping in mind recruited athletes, etc. </p>
<p>Also, does applying as a Connecticut resident affect admission chances in anyway?</p>
<p>If Yale is truly your first love and you are competitive (top 1% of class, 2200+ on SAT) or hooked, then go for it. According to NYT (the choice) SCEA had 15.68% acceptance rate compared with 6.68% overall. Hard to tell how much of this relates to athletes, but 3x better chance seems pretty significant to me.</p>
<p>This has been often discussed here and the answer is it does not improve admissions chances since the applicant pools are different and this accounts for the differing admissions rate. If you are looking to get an early acceptance and are not truly extraordinary even within Yale’s SCEA pool, then it is very reasonable to apply EA to a few other schools instead.</p>
<p>Applying as a CT resident likely decreases admissions chances since they are overrepresented in the applicant pool and efforts are made to create a geographically and culturally diverse class.</p>
<p>Thanks muckdogs07 and YaleGradandDad for taking the time to answer this thread. I am a competitive applicant with the stats that you listed muckdogs, but I am worried about standing out as YaleGrad alludes to. Since I don’t want this to become a “chance me” thread, as nobody can really predict chances, I have a different question:</p>
<p>Does Yale consider well-rounded applicants similarly competitive to applicants particularly strong in one area? Or is being well-rounded a disadvantage?</p>
<p>I attended an info session at Yale last month. They stated no advantage early. Lots of athletes and truly extraordinary candidates.</p>
<p>According to this article, Yale admitted 177 recruited athletes to the class of 2015, virtually all of whom were accepted early: [Recruitment</a> caps come at a cost | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/mar/26/recruitment-caps-come-cost/]Recruitment”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/mar/26/recruitment-caps-come-cost/)</p>
<p>It’s probably safe to assume that Yale’s class of 2016 (last year) had an equal number of athletic recruits in the early round. </p>
<p>Yale probably also admits an equal (or greater) number of early admits who are URM’s, Questbridge applicants, legacy’s and developmental cases.</p>
<p>If the above numbers are accurate, last year Yale admitted 340-350 hooked students in the early round out of a total 761 early admits. </p>
<p>I’l let you do the rest of the math, but for a non-hooked applicant, Yale’s SCEA acceptance rate is NOT 3x the regular rate!</p>
<p>Yes gibby, but for a non-hooked applicant regular decision is also a lower chance than for a hooked applicant. Your logic assumes that no hooked applicants were accepted regular decision, which while true for athletes, is not necessarily true for other hooks. I agree that since the athletes are recruited through SCEA, the admission rate may not be 3x, but it still does seem to be higher than the regular decision admit rate, most things considered (since we can’t account for difference in non-hooked applicant pool without more data).</p>
<p>Probably some element of self-selection as well - people who spend/waste their EA on Yale probably have better credentials than your average crapshoot RD applicant.</p>
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<p>And your logic assumes that other hooked candidates aren’t savvy enough to apply EA. Not true, at least of a couple of applicants I know personally.</p>
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<p>[Early</a> admit rate rises slightly | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/]Early”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/)</p>
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<p>At least Y keeps trying to spell it out, they can’t help it if people refuse to listen.</p>
<p>Sorry entomom, I didn’t mean to say that they weren’t savvy enough, just that not all of them will apply SCEA due to various reasons such as applying somewhere else early, etc. </p>
<p>As to the quote you have from the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, I agree that those accepted early are qualified and would be accepted in the spring, but not all people that “should” be accepted spring actually get accepted. Sometimes extraordinary people fall through the cracks. The logic in the increased chances might lie in the possibility of being considered in a smaller pool where the applicant is possibly considered more carefully and qualified applicants may get deferred and thus another chance at consideration vs being rejected or wait listed regular decision where the chance is rather low. I am not sure how much truth there is in that logic as I know that if one is not qualified in Yale’s eyes then Yale will not accept them.</p>
<p>Thankfully its easy for me, as I know I love Yale, and am willing to take a chance early to get in because I know I would go there over anywhere else. I would rather just take a chance to get a decision to get in on Dec. 15 rather than April.</p>
<p>@captainbrohab</p>
<p>Yes, hooked applicants apply in the RD round, but virtually ALL hooked applicants apply somewhere early – be it HYPS or somewhere else. Like any selective college, Yale gets a certain percentage of those hooked students applying early, so you cannot discount them in calculating your chances.</p>
<p>For example, Yale receives more Questbridge students than Harvard, which does not participate in the Questbridge program. (In past years Yale has admitted 58 students early through Questbridge.)</p>
<p>In addition, Yale also admits students early through a program called New Haven Promise: [Yale</a> to fund scholarships for New Haven students | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/nov/10/yale-to-fund-scholarships-for-new-haven-students/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/nov/10/yale-to-fund-scholarships-for-new-haven-students/)</p>
<p>It’s not impossible to be admitted early as a non-hooked applicant. My son was admitted early two years ago – so it does happen. (BTW: Just to give you an idea of the numbers from two years ago: 76 students from my son’s high school applied to Yale early; Yale admitted 6 of those students – and they hand-picked those they wanted; they just didn’t take the top 6.)</p>
<p>Best of luck to you . . . and may the odds be forever in your favor! (sorry, I couldn’t resist.)</p>
<p>76 students applied early to Yale!? Yikes. What school was that?
What was your son’s “hook”?</p>
<p>No hooks. Stuyvesant HIgh School. Graduating class is usually about 850 to. 900 students.</p>
<p>Wow 76 applicants and 6 accepted in one year! My school has only had 43 applicants and 1 admitted in the last five years.</p>
<p>Gibby,</p>
<p>Thanks for providing the figures on 2011 hooked EA acceptances, assuming your numbers are right and the 2011 class at Yale included 340-350 hooked early admits and the 2012 numbers were comparable (using 345 as my number for SCEA acceptances), then Yale’s early admit unhooked rate was 8.33% (according to the choice on nyt, Yale’s EA stats for 2012 were 675 acceptances out of 4304 applicants = 15.68%; take out 345 and this leaves 330 unhooked EA acceptances; then divide 330 by 3959 (number of total applicants minus the hooked acceptances and you get an unhooked EA admit rate of 8.33%).</p>
<p>This compares with an overall admit rate (both EA + RD) of about 6.8% (per the choice, 1,975 acceptances out of 28,974 applicants). Taking out the EA pool completely, this leaves 1300 acceptances out of 24,670 applicants or 5.26%. So, even looking at unhooked SCEA v. RD, the SCEA unhooked had a 50%-plus better chance than their RD counterparts. If Yale is captainbrohabs true love, then I would go for it SCEA, as it does appear their is an advantage.</p>
<p>As for Yale admissions statements, almost all admissions departments say the same thing – RD = no disadvantage over EA/ED – and why wouldn’t they so as not to discourage RD applicants. But that does not make it so. As for the super star applicants, I doubt this accounts for the difference as Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford also were SCEA in 2012 and Yale’s SCEA pool was lower in 2012 than 2012 by over 18%. Plus how do you measure superstar v. typical accepted yale student (an oxymoron). They are all superstars.</p>
<p>Errata </p>
<p>Yale’s SCEA pool was lower in 2012 than 2011 by over 18%</p>
<p>@muckdogs07: While your math seems plausible, the difference between acceptance rates could be that the vast majority of students applying SCEA are better students who are more secure in their credentials. After all, I would guess that some amount (10%-20%) of RD applicants throw an application in for the hell of it, but not too many are willing to waste their SCEA slot doing the same.</p>
<p>Gibby, what sort of things do you think differentiate said “better credentials” from the rest of the good-stats competitive pack?</p>
<p>I can only give you an example from my son’s school. Two years ago, about 100 students applied to Yale (SCEA + RD). Applicants had averages ranging from 98.1 to 72.9. (Who knows why students with lower averages applied – I’m guessing parent pressure.) That year, the lowest GPA Yale accepted was a 94.8. Based solely upon GPA – without knowing what other factors were considered – Yale denied more than half of the students who applied from one school because they were not competitive enough – they didn’t have better credentials – their GPA was too low. BTW: Some of those students with low averages had 2300-2400 SAT’s, but their grades indicated they were not competitive where it counted – in the classroom.</p>
<p>But Yale looks for more than a great GPA and scores, correct? So there must be some defining factor that separates extraordinary from merely intelligent and motivated. I’m just struggling to figure out what that is (and whether I have enough of it to stand a chance SCEA).</p>