Where to EA?! Princeton or Yale???

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>Junior this year and really having a dilemma choosing where I'll SCEA. I know it'll be either Princeton or Yale. I really like Yale; when I visited the campus it felt and looked awesome. The only fear I have is the 14% SCEA admissions rate. Some of my friends, who are very smart and got 2300+ on the SAT, were deferred and one was even rejected! </p>

<p>Princeton, though it didn't pop as much as Yale did, felt very nice and relaxed. It has Woody Woo which I am in love with and is much closer to home. It also has a 18% SCEA rate, which is markedly higher.</p>

<p>Both of these schools are awesome, but I am stuck! Yale is so good, but I feel like I'll be wasting my SCEA there with such a paltry chance of getting in. But with Princeton, I get a better chance in theory but it doesn't feel as right.</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help! My stats are as follows: </p>

<p>Stats:
-GPA:4.361 (W)<-Prob. highest/2nd highest in class. Doesn't include 11th grade
-PSAT: 223 (CR:80 M:73 W:70) (should be NMSF)
-SAT: 2290 (CR: 740 M:780 W:770)
-SAT II: Bio (740), Math 2 (790), World History (770)</p>

<p>Classes:</p>

<p>9th:
Bio HN (A)
World History 1 HN (A)
English 9 HN (A)
Alg. 2 HN (A)
PE 9 (A)
Photo 1 (A)
Spanish 2 (A)</p>

<p>10th:
Chem HN (A)
AP World History (A) Score:5
English 10 HN (A)
Precalc w/Trig HN (A)
PE 10 (A)
AP Stat (A) Score:4
Spanish 3 (A)
Leadership/SGA (A)</p>

<p>11th (current):
AP Chem (A)
AP Lang (A)
AP Physics B (A)
AP Calc BC (A)
US History HN (A)
Spanish 4 (A)
Writing Center (A)
(FYI- 4 AP is the max juniors take)</p>

<p>12th:
AP Physics C
AP Lit
AP Gov/AP Comp Gov
AP Psych
Mulitvar Calc / Linear Algebra
Spanish 5
Writing Center</p>

<p>ECs:
MUN (9-12) Secretary 11th, Pres/VP 12th
Debate (10-12) Varsity team and some tournament awards
Math Honor Society (10-12) leadership in 11th, Pres (most likely) 12th
Writing Center-Peer Tutor and I have a nondescript leadership pos.
Spanish Honor Society (11-12)
Science Honor Society (11-12) Will run for position
National Honor Society (11-12) Will run for position
Volunteer at hospital (on track for around 200 hrs by application time)
Rec League Basketball (7 years, 5 championships)
Rec League Basketball Coach for young kids (75 hrs)</p>

<p>Internship with Grameen Bank and Yunus Center (Noble Prize Winner)
Shadowed some businesspeople at a local business</p>

<p>-Academic Honor Roll
-2012 Gov. School as a sophomore
-This summer, I will be doing an internship either in a lab OR a Physical Therapy Place and be attending Debate Camp</p>

<p>So, here is my list of schools:</p>

<p>Princeton/Yale
Harvard
Nwestern HPME
Columbia
Penn-CAS
Brown PLME
Duke
UVA (instate)
UNC Chapel Hill
Pitt</p>

<p>I really am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Any help would be awesome! Thanks in advance</p>

<p>PS- Any advice on the overall college list would be awesome too!</p>

2

<p>i believe you can EA to both because they are not ED.</p>

3

<p>Uh, no.</p>

<p>It seriously does not matter one bit which one you SCEA to. Your chances suck at both (not because you suck).</p>

4

<p>Yale and Princeton are equally difficult to get into so just apply to the school that feels right. These schools are longshots for almost everyone.</p>

5

<p>4% admissions rate higher shouldn’t be the deciding factor… If you like Yale better SCEA there.</p>

6

<p>bump 10char</p>

7

<p>If you like the Woodrow Wilson school so much, why aren’t you considering other schools with strong programs in International Relations? These include Georgetown, JHU, Tufts, and Chicago, as well as less selective schools such as AU and GW. </p>

<p>I agree that the 4% admissions rate difference should not be a deciding factor. 14% and 18% are averages. Next year, a MUN president from Virginia might be relatively favored by Yale, by Princeton, by both, or by neither.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the feedback! One reason why those schools aren’t on my list is because I want to go to the medical field in the end (might have noticed the combined programs on my list). I was considering Gtown SFS, but I heard that trying to do premed and the SFS core is next to impossible. Plus, Gtown, as well as JHU, AU, and GWU are really too close to home.</p>

<p>I was considering Chicago, but their med school placement is not that high; and as for Tufts, I really didn’t like the feel its campus gave.</p>

<p>But, again, thanks for the feedback! I think I’ll reevaluate whether or not I’ll try for Georgetown. If anybody has tried to do SFS and premed reqs, please let me know!</p>

9

<p>I suggest you be a little skeptical of the med school “placement” concept. Colleges don’t really “place” their students into graduate and professional programs. Their students choose to apply to med school, or they don’t. They choose to apply to more selective schools, or to less selective schools, relative to their own MCAT scores and grades. So the raw numbers of students (or even the percentages of students) entering med school from a college do not necessarily tell you much about the strength of pre-med preparation at that college.</p>

<p>Chicago has a higher rate of PhD completions than Harvard or Columbia do. Does that mean Chicago prepares students better for graduate school? Or does it simply mean fewer Harvard and Columbia students choose that path?</p>

<p>This is not to deny that some colleges do have more or less competition or grade inflation. However, I would think - don’t really know for sure - that med schools account for that.</p>

10

<p>Yale and Princeton each have their unique personality. One of our kids fit in with Yale, the other fit in with Princeton. Visit each, take the information tour, and determine which has the better fit for you. Then apply to that one. It’s still a crap shoot, but give it a try.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Both offer single-choice EA (as are Harvard and Stanford), which means that if you apply EA to one of them, you agree not to apply ED anywhere or EA to domestic private schools which are not rolling admissions and which do not have early deadlines for scholarship consideration.</p>

12

<p>Just a quick question, what does everyone think of Stanford’s REA? I heard that some people strategically think it isn’t a good idea because they flat out reject so many people instead of deferring. Thoughts?</p>

13

<p>If you apply to Stanford REA and get rejected, then at least you know early. Don’t see why that is necessarily a disadvantage.</p>

14

<p>And other schools keeping a standing army on the deferred list doesn’t really help you.</p>

15

<p>^probably one of the funniest comments I’ve read on CC. I literally laughed for 2 minutes and I don’t know why</p>

16

<p>Haven’t seen Princeton yet, but I saw Yale for the first time today and it is an amazing place.</p>