<p>HYP admit the "promising" strong applicants and defer the rest unless some are flat out weak to be rejected. But Stanford mostly either accepts or rejects in EA. At least, that was the case in my school and other schools nearby.</p>
<p>Anybody agree or disagree?</p>
<p>I think Yale has a similar philosophy. There's no use stringing applicants along for several months if they are almost guaranteed to be rejected in the spring. </p>
<p>To see if there are more rejections than deferrals in the early round, you would just have to look at the admissions statistics to see that. </p>
<p>It is true some schools are more likely to defer EA while others are more likely to reject, but I wouldn't worry about it too much - if you're going to get in, you're going to get in (and if you're going to get rejected, it's going to happen sooner or later anyways), and applying EA or RD doesn't affect your chances to the degree some people think.</p>
<p>If it was me, I would rather get it all straightforward: Acceptance or rejection. I hate deferrals or waitlists. It's like they're asking you to beg for admission. Now, I am pretty sure Yale does NOT follow Stanford's policy (If what JetX is saying is true) b/c I know everyone at my school who applied EA Yale got deferred then rejected at RD.</p>
<p>According to what I've seen regarding Yale's EA round, less than 18% were accepted (making Yale the only Ivy League School with a sub-20% early acceptance rate), while 33% were rejected outright and 48% deferred. Anyone want to dig up the #s for Stanford? </p>
<p>If a greater proportion of early applicants were rejected at Stanford, keep in mind that this could mean that Stanford's early applicant pool wasn't as strong as Yale's, a fact that seems likely given Yale's greater selectivity overall (e.g., Yale's total dominance vis a vis Stanford in attracting NMSC-sponsored National Merit Scholars as a % of its entering class; Yale's lower acceptance rate). It might have nothing to do with anyone's policy. </p>
<p>Disappointed with its crop of early applicants, Stanford may well have just been willing to reject more of them and wait for a hoard of Yale & Harvard early rejects - the real top talent - to apply regular decision.</p>
<p>At a public information meeting by Stanford I attended two years ago, it was made clear that Stanford makes more final decisions in the early round (either to admit or to reject) than some of the "peer" institutions. If you apply SCEA to Stanford, you have a higher than usual likelihood of getting a definite answer by the end of the first semester of your senior year. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>All I am saying is that "policy" might be out of necessity, not choice.</p>
<p>And posterX/Yale Troll Extraordinaire rolls on over to the Stanford board! He's decided to be aggressive!</p>
<p>Well, posterX, bring it. </p>
<p>No, posterX, it is not out of necessity. The Stanford SCEA pool is as strong if not stronger than Yale's, because Stanford has a dominant market pool on the greatest college-application pool of them all, California. </p>
<p>"Yale & Harvard early rejects - the real top talent"
Data? Facts?</p>
<p>As for the NMSC question, Yale and Harvard continue to be numbers-driven to a point of no return. This can often be associated with a stifled social life. </p>
<p>And for the acceptance rate, Stanford received slightly more applications than Yale. But Stanford's class size is 300 more than Yale. </p>
<p>Oh, PosterX, do you have the data for 2010 yet? How much did Yale's yield drop this year? Did they take more than 50 of the waitlist?</p>
<p>Yale and Harvard are no more "numbers-driven" than Stanford in their admissions process. I would say Stanford is more "numbers-driven", given that, unlike the Ivies, it gives out scholarships to its athletes, essentially making them paid professionals. And from what I've seen, Stanford's social life doesn't even come close to Yale's or most of the other Ivies, and isn't any better than Harvard's either. </p>
<p>Regarding your comment on the college application market, Stanford is certainly a great choice in California (probably the best after Caltech and Pomona), but Harvard and Yale are clearly the best of the best in the country as a whole. See the Revealed Preference survey. Even if you're going by region, California doesn't hold a candle to the BosWash Megalopolis.</p>
<p>My thoughts on why Stanford rejects more in its early round are just a conjecture. The other conjecture is that they have a different policy. Both are valid ways to interpret the data and both are within the realm of possibilities. It's not possible to definitively know which one is correct, which was my only point here.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for your call for data and facts. I would like to see some of those too. </p>
<p>California is the highest-population state in the United States, so it stands to reason that there are some great high school graduates in California each year (especially among the many first-generation immigrants from east Asia, I might add). But I have no idea whether or not the most outstanding CA high school graduates would rather stay in state, or venture out of state. I also have no idea, on a per capita basis, whether or not California compares favorably with Midwestern states like the ones I lived in growing up. When I was young, I was told that CA had great public schools. But in recent years, including years in which I have traveled to CA on business, I have read often that schools in CA are now a disaster. I don't know which statement, if either, might be exaggerated, but if CA students are numerous, but not particularly well prepared for college, a college that draws heavily on CA students might very well be worse than a college that draws mostly from a better educated region. </p>
<p>What facts do you have on these issues? What would be informative and persuasive for an applicant considering, say, an out-of-state application to Yale on the one hand and Stanford on the other hand?</p>
<p>California is the highest-population state in part because it covers such a large area. Many states in the Northeast have higher population densities than California, and in general I would argue that the BosWash corridor - an area of the U.S. that is smaller than California - is much more influential than all the U.S. States west of the Rocky Mountains combined.</p>
<p>Also, it is true that, relative to their East Coast counterparts, CA public schools are a disaster. The CEO of Intel, a California-based company, has lectured and written widely on this subject. Of course there are a few good districts, but the top performing students as measured by NCEA test standards are always those in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and other Northeastern states (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa also occasionally break into the top ten states).</p>
<p>posterX, your comments regarding Stanford are downright offensive, reflecting a disturbing overabundance of Ivy-League elitism. Stanford is not a school for Harvard and Yale rejects. I know people who were admitted to Stanford and not Harvard or Yale and people who were admitted to Harvard or Yale but not Stanford. Stanford's student body is just as strong as either Harvard's or Yale's and it is as good an undergraduate institution as either.</p>
<p>And I say all this despite being about to start at Yale in the fall. I was admitted to both Stanford and Yale (a very difficult decision), and, honestly, the main reason I chose Yale was because I'm a Stanford legacy and wanted to do something different from my parents (plus, as a California resident, I wanted to try living on the other coast). That said, if I had been planning to major in the sciences rather than the humanities or social sciences, Stanford's superior academic strength in that area would have caused me to choose it over Yale. Even regardless of that, I considered Stanford a better choice than Harvard as an undergraduate institution- so much so that I didn't even apply to Harvard. </p>
<p>I know a girl who was hugely disappointed that Stanford did not take her even though she was accepted at Yale and MIT. Many people really do consider Stanford a better choice.</p>
<p>Your comment that Stanford is the best school in California after Pomona and Caltech is also absurd. I don't know anyone from my school who preferred either Pomona or Caltech to Stanford. In fact, I doubt that anyone really feels that Pomona (although one of the top LACs in the country) is better than Stanford, while Caltech could only be considered better for someone firmly committed to engineering or the hard sciences (and even among prospective engineering majors, I know two who chose UC Berkeley over Caltech).</p>
<p>Finally, I would like to speak in defense of the quality of students in California. The overall weakness of our schools that you cite is due in large part to the huge numbers of Hispanic immigrants to California, many of whom do not speak English very well. If Connecticut or Massachusetts had an immigrant (particularly non-English speaking) population even close to that of California, I doubt their test scores would be quite so high. California produces as many top students as would be expected at a school of its size, as evidenced by the number of Californian students in the nation's top universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT.</p>
<p>Please posterX, spare us your disparaging of Stanford, which is truly one of the top universities in the country.</p>
<p>There's no way Stanford's EA pool is weaker than Harvard/Yale's. Just go to the SCEA decisions thread from last year and check out the stats of some people who were rejected. People with 2300+ SATs and great ECs were getting rejected left and right.</p>
<p>Anyway, EA is more advantageous at Yale than Stanford because Yale fills up half the class with people from the EA pool. Even if you're deferred EA, you still have a 13-15% chance of being accepted RD -- twice as much compared to the overall RD acceptance rate of 5.5%. On the other hand, Stanford only accepts roughly 18% EA, defers 20%, and rejects the rest. And deferred people only have a 10% chance of getting in RD (the RD acceptance rate is around 7%). I think Stanford has just always maintained a hardline stance in making the majority of their offers during RD.</p>
<p>LazyAsian, out of curiosity, where did you get the admit rates for deferred applicants? I've never seen that statistic listed anywhere.</p>
<p>I've read it a couple times here on this board. I've never seen it published anywhere either. (Neither have I seen the deferral rates published, but someone who called the admissions office after EA decisions last year said it was 20%.)</p>
<p>"Yale and Harvard are no more "numbers-driven" than Stanford in their admissions process. I would say Stanford is more "numbers-driven", given that, unlike the Ivies, it gives out scholarships to its athletes, essentially making them paid professionals."
Yale, Stanford and Harvard all admit substandard athletes. Whether they have scholarships or not doesn't matter. Don't copy Byerly's favorite argument, please. </p>
<p>"Regarding your comment on the college application market, Stanford is certainly a great choice in California (probably the best after Caltech and Pomona)"
Pomona!? The seventh-best LAC!? Someone must have been really bitter after the RD rejection, huh PosterX?</p>
<p>Read this:
"Recently, however, Yale has begun to lose more Stanford common admits than it wins, particularly students from the Western states. 'The dot-com world is a big part of the draw for Stanford,' concedes Shaw."</p>
<p>Tokenadult brings up a very good point about California public schools. But the issue is more complex than just being "bad." There is a great disparity between schools in different areas--schools in say, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, the Bay Area, etc. are very good, and in poorer parts they are very bad. This is in part due to the property tax restrictions, etc. So there are a lot of good California schools, and a vast upper-middle class to feed into schools like Stanford. </p>
<p>It doesn't matter if the "BosWash" corridor is smaller than CA geographically. It certainly has a population much larger than the 30 million that currently reside in California. NY alone has 7 million people in its metropolitan area. One must also take into account that populations are declining in the northeast relative to other parts of the country (the census confirms this with the shifts in electoral votes). So that "influence" might indeed be declining, especially as East Asia rather than Europe becomes our most important trading partner.</p>
<p>I agree with svalbardlutefisk that stanford is not weaker than harvard or yale. Of course, i may be biased because i am going to attend stanford soon. Like svalbardlutefisk, I too was accepted to both stanford and yale, but i chose stanford because I am interested in the sciences. I also know many people who chose stanford over yale/harvard and a few yalies whose dreams were to go to stanford but were rejected. Stanford science and engineering are on par with (if not better than) those of mit, caltech and berkley. Furthermore, stanford's humanity, history, and lit courses are just as good as the ivies. We get the benefits of both sides. So to say that stanford does not amount to the ivies is pretty irrational. </p>
<p>One more question, posterX, which college r u going to?</p>
<p>From my experience with my school's admissions 2010 (I live in California), it went something like this:</p>
<p>Stanford SCEA: ~30+ applied, 4 accepted (1 recruit), 2 deferred, the rest rejected
Stanford RA: ~20+ applied, 2 accepted from RA pool, 1 deferree was accepted (other was rejected), the rest were rejected</p>
<p>Yale SCEA: ~6 applied, 1 accepted, 0 rejected, the rest were deferred
Yale RA: ~11+ applied, 1 accepted from RA pool, all deferrees were rejected (6), the rest were rejected</p>
<p>Harvard SCEA: ~4+ applied, 0 accepted, 0 rejected, all deferred (4)
Harvard RA: ~6+ applied, 3 accepted from RA pool, 0 deferrees accepted, 3 waitlisted (2 deferrees, 1 RA), rest were rejected </p>
<p>I won't list out Princeton, cuz they hate us. Suffice it say that no one was accepted to Princeton from our school.</p>
<p>So just from my school, it seems to me that Stanford really uses the rejection frequently in SCEA. They only defer those who actually have chances. Another thing to note is that Stanford accepted those who had KILLER essays. I mean it. We had three kids who had respective SAT scores of 2400, 2390, and 2350, and were all rejected SCEA. They also had arguably better EC's than the ones who were accepted (except for 2 of them). I read the accepted students' essays, and they too believe that's what put them over the top. Stanford doesn't have an interview, so it really needs to see your personality come through in your essays and recommendations, etc.</p>
<p>Yale and Harvard both seem big on deferring applicants. Trust me, those that were deferred weren't that great. NONE of them were accepted RA...</p>
<p>Oh if you want the matriculations...5/7 are going to Stanford, 0/2 Yale, 3/3 Harvard</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
One more question, posterX, which college r u going to?
[/QUOTE]
Well after browsing through some of his posts (none of which ever say anything negative about Yale-ever) I think its safe to assume that he has some tie there, either he goes there has graduated from there or has some sort of relative there.
The fact that Stanford rejects lots of EA applicants has nothing to do with the strength of its candidate pool its just how they do it at stanford.</p>
<p>PS:I know a guy who got into MIT but rejected to Stanford.</p>
<p>"It's not possible to definitively know which one is correct..." Actually, a Stanford admissions representative told us they reject a lot of people EA specifically because they don't want to keep people hanging by deferring them and later rejecting them. I think their policy is good, because I would personally hate to be deferred and then rejected. It has nothing to do with the non-existent weakness of their EA pool compared to other schools. Of the two people at my school who were accepted EA to Stanford, one got into Yale RD and the other got into Harvard RD, so don't bother trying to convince anyone that the Stanford EA pool is weak.
I also don't know anyone who would go to Pomona over Stanford, unless they desperately wanted a small school. When I got into Stanford EA, I decided not to apply to Pomona to save my application fee, although I know Pomona is a great LAC. I'm sure people who are very interested in science would consider Caltech over Stanford, though.
I completely agree and even theorized myself that CA's low public school test scores are due to the large population of poor English speakers. It also has to do with funding, exactly.</p>
<p>bluephish, i agree that caltech is very strong at science (i have a very good and very genius friend who goes there). However, u have to admit that stanford's engineering and science departments are pretty dam awesome as well. From what I've heard, it seems like the two schools' learning and social environment may contribute to caltech seeming more hardcore techi. But hey, silicon valley is built around stanford : ) STANFORD PRIDE!</p>