<p>I'm a junior at a relatively competitive (but we're not in the practice of assured acceptances to certain schools) New York, Westchester, suburban high school.... we don't rank, but I'm near the top of my class, have a 2200 SAT that i'll be retaking, should have decent SAT II's hopefully, and teacher recs should be fine, etc. I'm also Asian and female, and have an extremely strong humanities bent. I've founded my schools Gay Straight Alliance, though I'm straight, and it's my top extracurricular, and will likely be Editor in chief of newspaper, i'm color guard captain, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Overall, I'm aware I'm pretty average/below average in the applicant pool. No national awards, almost no state recognition. I love to write, I love design (I've been selling handmade jewelry and clothing, and also doing freelance webdesign), and I do karate as well. All of this is just background information.</p>
<p>The question is, EA or RD? I know they're harder on EA applicants and many very strong applicants apply then, especially legacies and athletes. Strategically, for someone like me, an overrepresented minority from an overrepresented state with OK numbers, which is best to go with?</p>
<p>If you want to go to Harvard... of course you EA. EA will always give you a better chance than RD for almost every single college/university out there. And theres little to no chance they will reject you as Harvard rejects only something like 3% of EA applicants (those are the ppl who just tried out for the hek of it). So yea, if you want to do Harvard, EA harvard. =P</p>
<p>Are you truly interested in Harvard? The rule of thumb is to expect a deferral from Harvard, and then most apply RD. I wouldn't burn up my EA with a school that's likely to defer me.</p>
<p>In response to one post, yes, it's my first choice... Just got mailed the app today, and I feel rather depressed reading it. Que sera sera, I suppose.</p>
<p>And yeah, GSA is awesome. :D We <em>almost</em> got Kevin Jennings from GLSEN to speak to us... but GLSEN canceled on us two weeks before he was scheduled to speak and a storm of newspaper clippings, letters to the editor, and parents concerned about family values followed. Ha.</p>