<p>To mammall: Your daughter sounds like she has credentials for Olin and Cooper Union which are both completely free! to anyone who is admitted, regardless of need.</p>
<p>There's another such school on LI but I think it only teaches naval architecture. Great if you want to be a naval architect!</p>
<p>Many top schools give merit money, and many are not need blind.</p>
<p>And as for money, following Marite's ideas. Let's say one family makes $215K; another 100K. Marite reported the 215K family keeps 90K after taxes. Let's say the 100K family keeps 60K. Let's further assume that the 100K family does not get full ride; highly unlikely that it would. Let's say the family gets 20K (very generous) and must pay 30K. The 215K family is still ahead, and before and after college must be paid for obviously has more disposable income to save, invest or enjoy.</p>
<p>Situation is similar at Cooper Union: Tuition is free but there are mandatory fees ($1550) and room and board ($13,500). Living expenses may be subsidized by college-administered financial aid. It may or may not be a good deal compared to other places - and they only offer a very few fields of study. Also 10% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Oops! Thanks for the correction. Well, the naval architecture school is no out of pocket expense. I want to say Wells, but I know that's a former women's college. The name eludes me.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the news! It's good news at our house. I can't believe the Stanford numbers didn't increase either. Maybe others were taking the same strategy as my daughter. Stanford is her first choice but she was not planning to apply early, in part, because of the speculated increase in the quantity and quality of the early pool. That combined with our perception that SCEA to Stanford does not provide as much of an advantage as Harvard and Princeton's early programs did. She ended up applying SCEA to Stanford after all, so we're very happy about the application numbers!</p>
<p>Harvard was SCEA, too. The EA schools all get more early applications than the ED schools, precisely because EA is a better deal for students than ED, even though the admission rates tend to be higher at the ED schools. For example, I think Princeton tended to accept about 550 out of 2,500 ED applications, and Harvard would accept 650 out of 4,500 EA applications. </p>
<p>The lower admit rate for SCEA never resulted in fewer applications before. I'm not certain why it should now. After all, even with a 30% increase in its SCEA applications, if Yale accepts the same absolute number of SCEA applicants as it did last year, the acceptance rate in the SCEA round will still be more than double that in the RD round (down from more than quadruple last year).</p>
<p>JHS,
Oh dear! My bad about Harvard! [grimace]. But now that I think about it some more, it makes sense to me that Yale had the big increase and Stanford did not for 2 reasons-1] HYP are associated together in the minds of many "Ivy "conscious students and parents regardless of where they live. Getting accepted by any one of the three is viewed by many applicants as achieving the ultimate success in the highly competative college application "race". So if the advantage of applying to one Ivy early goes away, then I believe the thinking goes [for those who care about acceptance at an "Ivy"] - switch the early application to another Ivy instead.
2] I think that the location of Stanford-so far away home for east coast students, as well as so far away from any of the other "Ivy" caliber Universities, IS a BIG reason many aren't switching their applications to Stanford in greater numbers. And since nothing has changed in Stanford's admission policy that would affect the majority of it's applicants, who are from the west coast, there isn't a reason to expect a big rise in the number of early applicants. Far fewer students from Calif apply to out of state Universities than in other parts of the country. Why apply to the Ivy's when the chances of getting into Stanford, which is considered Calif.'s "Ivy", are just as good if not better for Calif students? And there is the "consolution" prize of the UC's for those Calif students not quite qualified to get into a Stanford or an Ivy. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>My son, a California kid, was planning SCEA to Stanford. A while back this fall we discussed whether it might be smarter to apply EA to Georgetown and U Chicago -- two schools that were also on his list. It seemed a smarter move because those schools admit a higher percentage of kids than Stanford (or Yale). If he got into one of them, he would maybe have winter break (or Presidents Weekend) to fly back and see them ( he has seen neither one.) Seeing them in the winter seemed like a real plus. The chances of getting into one of them seemed higher than getting into Stanford or Yale. However, in the end he applied to Stanford because he had seen Stanford and knew he really liked it and couldn't be sure if that would be the case with the other two. In the end, I guess it was the right call from a numbers perspective although it will be a moot point if he doesn't get in. I mention this because maybe the thought process we had was had by others who have seen those schools or who live closer to them. In my son's case, he went with the school he knew the best and could picture himself at. But I can really understand the appeal of being able to apply to two or more schools early as opposed to one.</p>
<p>I don't know, Menloparkmom. It seems to me that plenty of west coast kids apply to east coast schools. At many east coast schools, California is the second most represented state -- our kids do go back east -- my daughter chose Yale over Stanford. In addition, Stanford is highly regarded on the east coast. It's no farther for those kids to come here than for ours to go there. And we have the weather which is a nice draw. I do agree with you that the kids who apply to Harvard or Princeton would be more likely to switch to Yale because it is geographically in the same region they were already desiring and because those kids really want to be in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>for each state show where students send their score reports when they are applying to colleges. Some colleges have a stronger out-of-state draw than others. Some colleges are hot in one state, and not in another. Most students apply and attend near to home.</p>
<p>We live in a western state, not California. Our family's analysis was, "if you're going to the airport to get to school, it doesn't really matter which direction the plane is flying." If she gets in at an eastern school, her flying time is comparable to the drive time it would take her to get to our best state university. Stanford and the HYP thus became comparable in terms of convenience of location. This may be true for many families in non-coastal states!</p>
<p>Everyone has a slightly different perspective. Here, Harvard seems a lot closer than Stanford, and it's very drivable. But when you match up actual travel times, Stanford is maybe an extra hour or two away vs. driving to Boston, closer (and not much more expensive) than taking the train, and only 2-3 hours more (and not more expensive) than flying. Whatever. I stand by my earlier observation that lots and lots of Eastern kids who apply to Harvard (or Yale, or Princeton, or all of them) also apply to Stanford, though certainly not all of them, would be happy to attend if admitted, and sometimes actually turn Harvard etc. down to go there. It's a big-boy university, and anyone who cares that it's not "an Ivy" is really awfully misguided.</p>
<p>Obviously, a fair number of potential Harvard-Princeton applicants DID decide to apply SCEA to Stanford. I wonder what happened to net its early applications down to 0 increase.</p>
<p>JHS -- sometimes there is a reaction when people think that everyone will apply somewhere. In other words, if people believed that Stanford would get so many applications that it would be difficult odds and knew that Stanford doesn't do a lot of deferring, they may have felt it would be wiser to wait until the regular pool and apply earlier elsewhere. I've seen that happen in our city with popular magnet programs, etc. I.e. "I won't get in so I won't waste the application."</p>
<p>Yes, of course, mimk6. But: (a) The same is true of Yale (except for not deferring), and there was still a sizable bump there (assuming it isn't all Questbridge, per xiggi). (b) Anyone who thinks waiting until RD will give him or her a better chance isn't thinking much. (c) Year after year, some very, very impressive students apply SCEA to Harvard or ED to Princeton. Rightly or wrongly (often rightly), they are pretty confident they will get in. (Not everyone, of course, but some.) They are confident that they would get into Stanford, too.</p>
<p>The effect might show up with more marginal candidates: "It's going to be a huge, strong pool this year. Maybe I won't bother." The thing is, it's been a huge, strong pool every year, at all these schools, and somehow tens of thousands of kids keep applying, almost on a lottery-ticket basis. But, still, it's hard to understand why Yale and Stanford were different in this respect. Unless it really is Yale's Questbridge treatment. That would have an awfully interesting implication: Despite students' perennial willingness to apply RD to HYPS in the face of 18:1 odds, roughly, maybe they won't apply EA at worse than 5:1.</p>
<p>Here's a sort of mundane explanantion as to why Yale had a big increase and Stanford didn't -- the yale common app supplement is somewhat less involved than the stanford supplement. One essay instead of quite a few short ones. Some kids may just have been rushing to make the deadline and went for what seemed like the easier application. Also, the way stanford handles mailling labels requires more foresight. EA has to be check-marked on the label used for teacher and secondary materials. That means the student has to have decided on Yale early enough to get the appropriate label out to the folks at the high school. Many harried seniors just aren't that planful. My own was noodling right up to the last second over what her "early" game plan would be.</p>
<p>The Office of Admissions received Early Decision applications from 1,397 high school students across the country and the globe — an increase of 8.7 percent over last year and the largest number of early applications ever, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris said. The applicants included 686 men and 710 women.</p>
<p>Especially notable, Laskaris said, was the sharp increase in applications from outside the United States; 169 international students applied early this year, 36 percent higher than last year’s 124. She attributed this increase to strong summer and fall outreach programs by admissions officers.
<p>What is Yale's policy regarding deferral of ealy applicants to the regular round? Stanford only defers 10 % of early applicants to the regular round. They rest are either accepted or outright rejected. Are a larger % of early applicants deferred at Yale? That may be another factor in the difference. Or it could just be a fluke this year.</p>