<p>I have noticed this question being brought up a couple of times, but I was still not sure how it works. </p>
<p>I have read on the admission's website that being deferred from SCEA meant your application was strong, but missing a component. They would like to evaluate your credentials along with additional materials in the regular decision round.</p>
<p>However, are you being put on the same 'playing field' as the regular decision applicants? Will your profile be considered a regular decision applicant instead of a SCEA applicant? Along with the other applicants, would there be no distinctions between deferred and regular decision applicants when they make their decisions?</p>
<p>Or do they have a specific ratio of accepting a specific number of deferred students (perhaps more/less than the regular decision applicants) compared to the original regular decision students?</p>
<p>There is definitely no specific ratio. Deferred applicants are really sorted into three groups. </p>
<p>The first is the group of kids who the admissions officers already know will get in RD. For some reason, yale (under brenzel) has taken the stance that the majority of the enrolled class should be from the RD round - even though SCEA is nonbinding. (Yale only takes the SCEA kids who they know they absolutely want and don’t want to lose to other schools. They hope that by giving them their first admission, they will fall more in love with yale and ultimately matriculate.) The only reason these kids are not in the SCEA group is that Yale admissions is not incredibly worried about losing these kids to other schools when they ultimately accept them in the RD round and, for statistical purposes, would rather defer them to make the RD round acceptance rate higher (and SCEA rate lower) and make the RD round seem more open than it actually is. SCEA gets a bad rep for being tilted in favor of the privileged - which it isnt given yale’s fantastic financial aid and the nonbinding nature of SCEA.</p>
<p>The second group is made up of kids where they are interested, but aren’t entirely sure if they should be accepted. They wait and see if they can find a “better version” of the applicant in the RD pool.</p>
<p>The third group is made of of kids who are polite rejects - similar to some students on the waiting list. This is mostly comprised of legacies or statistically capable applicants who fit all the numerical criteria for an accepted student, but don’t have that special quality that makes for an accepted student. Going on a tangent, it is the third group where Stanford and Yale seem to differ in their SCEA policies as yale defers 50% and Stanford defers closer to 15%</p>
<p>To loop back to your original question, it will depend on what group you get sorted into if you apply. Group 1 is better, group 2 is the same, and group 3 is worse.</p>
<p>^wow, that sounds like really privileged information. what’s the source?</p>
<p>EDIT: also, could you explain this?</p>
<p>[q]The only reason these kids are not in the SCEA group is that Yale admissions is not incredibly worried about losing these kids to other schools when they ultimately accept them in the RD round[/q]</p>
<p>“not worried about losing these kids”? Why? Is it because these kids have qualities that Yale wants, but other schools aren’t that interested in, and won’t put up much of a fight for them? Or maybe these kids have already demonstrated such great interest in Yale that it’s obvious Yale is their first choice, so there’s never chance of losing them. Or is it something else?</p>
<p>All this came from my non-school college counselor who used to work in admissions at a very selective school. You can read about brenzel’s decision about the makeup of the class openly at YDN.</p>
<p>The reason why some kids are deferred rather than accepted SCEA has to do with HOW much yale/stanford likes them in relation with other political dealings as mentioned before in keeping the SCEA rate down. We are not talking about the majority of RD accepts being in that first group, just a handful. I cannot tell you why yale/stanford defers these kids specifically, but at the end of the day they are more concerned with their stats than possibly getting this one student, who they do not have a commitment from and will not alone turn the incoming class in to the best class ever. Schools care immensely about their stats (admit rate, yield, and others) and their ranking in US News despite what they may say publicly (eg. tuft’s syndrome or princeton breaking into yale admits acceptance decisions). While UPenn is the worst cheater by far, Harvard improved their ranking (2->1) by cutting out their largest classes and describing class sizes differently (according to my friends at harvard). </p>
<p>In turn, people educated enough to get into these schools mostly know that these rankings are bunk. It is why cross-admits continue to mostly prefer dartmouth over upenn and duke in sometimes extreme numbers despite dartmouth being in lower in the rankings. Lies, d*mn lies, and statistics (which turn into rankings).</p>
<p>When you submit by the SCEA deadline, is it possible to make a few additional corrections/results after the Nov. 1 deadline? (Some competition results come out the same week or right after.) I would believe they wouldn’t accept anything after the deadline, but I want to confirm.</p>
<p>You can’t change your application once it’s submitted, but you can fax or e-mail Yale with updates about new accomplishments, like competition results.</p>
Group 1 certainly is better, since it’s tantamount to acceptance. Group 2 is also far better than normal RD, since members of Group 2 (probably the largest of the deferred groups) have passed at least a couple screens that will winnow down the RD pool considerably). Group 3, of course, is worse than RD, since they are certain NOT to be accepted. </p>
<p>The thing is, however, that it’s impossible to tell Group 2 from Group 3, and it’s nearly impossible to tell Group 1 from Group 2. (And remember, on Orange’s analysis, both Group 1 and Group 3 have lots of legacies.) So, on average, the deferred SCEA applicants get results that look a whole lot like the average RD applicant. Maybe a little better, but only a little.</p>
<p>I only mentioned legacies in Group 3. I am not sure why people have suggested that I am saying legacies are either disadvantaged getting in SCEA or are advantaged in getting into group 1. </p>
<p>Legacies are mostly likely to be grouped into Group 3 if not accepted SCEA and then group 2 as legacy acts as a tipping factor in the RD round. Legacies and geography are the first people to get a look when filling in the gaps AFTER finishing out the majority of the class. Unless they think they can wrangle a fat check out of a SCEA deferred applicant’s parents with the false threat of rejection/waitlist, there would be no reason for a legacy to be in group 1 - a happy donor is a generous donor. Regarding legacies, I don’t have any statistics, but would guess they matriculate at a higher rate than the overall class, a positive for yale that would be further enforced if accepted SCEA.</p>
<p>Now you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. If what characterizes Group I is a high likelihood that the applicant will matriculate if accepted RD, then it stands to reason that there will be a bunch of legacies in Group I. I also think they are sensitive about accepting too many privileged kids EA, and that would drive legacy applicants into deferred status, too, even if they were very strong candidates. And, indeed, over half of the legacy kids I know who were accepted at Yale were accepted after being deferred EA. The rest were accepted EA.</p>
<p>In no way have I contradicted myself. You read in between the lines for something that isn’t in any of my posts - likelihood of matriculation rates in each group of deferred students.</p>
<p>Group 1 is not characterized by a high likelihood of matriculation. It is characterized by students who yale/stanford wants but are not worth blowing up their early stats for. They understand the risks that they take by deferring them and the increased likelihood of them matriculating to another school even after being accepted in the RD round.</p>
<p>I agree, and have already said, that yale/stanford is sensitive to the fact that SCEA is perceived to benefit the privileged and wants to limit the “advantage” of applying early. Because Yale does not actively advertise the legacy SCEA admit/defer/reject rate, there isn’t specific pressure around the SCEA number, but around the overall legacy acceptance rate and % of the matriculated class made up of legacies. You can also ask yourself where that pressure is coming from and does yale/stanford really care. I imagine now that I have more clearly defined Group 1 you understand why legacies do not logically flow into group 1. Whether none, half, or all of admitted legacy applicants you know were accepted after being deferred says nothing about whether they were in Group 1 or Group 2, only that they were not in group 3.</p>
Reviving this old thread: based on recent information and a lot of thinking about the subject, I think it works something like this. The admissions office has a pretty clear maximum number that they’ll take EA (~750 - ~800, at least until the new colleges open). I think they keep this to just under 40% of the total number of acceptances over the cycle, for policy reasons (they want the number admitted RD to be meaningfully larger). Some number of SCEA candidates are eliminated on first reading as unqualified. They go through the committee rounds and admit the candidates they really don’t want to lose to comparable schools or have to take for some reason (e.g., recruited athletes, strong URMs, development cases, kids with some unique talent, cockeyed geniuses, etc.), and when they hit the maximum number, they’re done with the acceptances. Those who got far enough through the committee rounds automatically get deferred. Some of the acceptances may be legacies, and many of the other legacies get automatically deferred (if they’re good enough to stand a chance in the regular pool, as many probably are, or if their parents are involved/generous). They then look at who’s left and size the deferral pool such that it has an anticipated admit rate comparable to the RD pool. Anyone left over is rejected.