The mirage of higher SCEA acceptance rate for unhooked applicants?

Applying to College
1

I am struggling with whether I should apply SCEA, so I did some quick calculations to get a sense of my chances. I know Avg chances don’t mean anything for the individual applicant, but still I think the overall admit rate conceals some real issues for unhooked candidates in the SCEA round.

I am going to use Harvard as an example, but I think this kind of analysis could apply to the other 3 as well. I have made some assumptions here, but my feeling is that tweaking these assumptions won’t materially impact the final outcome.

Harvard SCEA Apps 6,958
Overall Admit Rate 13.44%

Accepted 935

Recruited Athlete Accept Rate 85% ( based on Harvard case?)
legacy Accept Rate 36% (based on Harvard case?)
URM/Diversity Applicant Accept Rate 50% (I have assumed that most applying SCEA are quite strong)
** Class Size** 1,665
% of Rec Athletes in class 20% (Gleaned from various sources)
% of Legacy in class 15% (Gleaned from various sources)
% of URM/Diversity admits in class 15%
Thus # of Rec Athletes 333
Thus # of Legacy 250
Thus # of URM/diversity 250
% of Rec Athletes enrolled in Early Round 85% ( I am assuming most apply in SCEA round)
% of Leagacy enrolled in Early Round 85% (Same as above)
% of URM enrolled in Early Round 25% ( I have taken this number down because of lack of information/counseling)

of Athletes enrolled from Early Round 283

of Legacy enrolled from Early Round 212

of URM/diversity enrolled from Early Round 62

of Pref Admits Enrolled from Early Round 558 (283+212+62)

# of Pref Admits Accepted in Early Round 593 (Assuming 94% Yield for SCEA round)
** # of Other Unhooked Admits accepted in Early Round** 342 (935-593)

of Rec Athletes Apps in Early round 354 (Based on 94% yield rate and 85% admit rate)

of Legacy Apps in Early Round 627

of URM/diversity apps in Early Round 133

Total # of Pref Applicants 1,114
Avg Pref Applicant Admit Rate 50.05%
Avg Other App Admit Rate 5.85%

So it is really 5.85% not 13.44%, which I think is not a small difference! and that admit rate for an average unhooked candidate is not much larger than the RD round for Harvard, so does it really make sense to apply SCEA?:frowning:

2

You cannot make that assumption. There may be applicants who are athletic recruits and legacy and URM.

Regardless, Harvard has gone on record (feel free to search for the quote, as your question has been asked many many times before) as saying that they will not accept an applicant in SCEA that they would not accept RD. So even without parsing the data to death, you’re right; there is no advantage to applying early to Harvard, except that if you are accepted, you’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief and will not have to complete additional applications.

For other colleges, it may be different, and there could be an advantage to applying early. But if Harvard is the clear first choice, then by all means apply SCEA.

3

However, if you do the math, you would realize that the true RD acceptance rate is around 2-3%. That number even includes hooked applicants.