<p>Sorry about title. :D ---I have a friend who asked me to ask a question on this forum. He is currently a junior and doesnt know if he should apply to SCEA at Stanford or do ED at a few elite schools instead (so that he will have greater chances) like MIT, Caltech, Columbia. He is afraid to go SCEA because his gpa will be 3.88 at the time he submits his app, but by the end of his first semester, he'll have a 3.9 if he gets straight A's. Here are his stats:</p>
<p>SAT:2170 Superscored (800M, 690W, 680 V)- he wants 2200+
SAT II's: 790 Math IIC, 700 Biology
ACT: N/A
GPA @ Start of senior year 3.88 ; GPA at end of first semester: 3.9
AP courses: 8 AP courses
Income bracket:65,000
EXtracurriculars:
Science Olympiad
Generic Science Competition
Web-site manager for Technology Club
Track-4 years; 2 years Varsity
Band 4 Years
Key Club
NHS
Mexican club
Engineering club
Job at family business for couple of summers
Ethnicity: Mexican/Vietnamese(dunno if this mix would benefit him)
Awards: National Merit Commended, National Hispanic Scholar</p>
<p>bump. is it better to apply to stanford scea or ed for a bunch of good schools. he really wants stanford, but feels like he won’t get in so he wants to ed in a bunch of schools.</p>
<p>You can’t ed more than one school. You could get sued.</p>
<p>uhhhh. i thought you could at some schools that aren’t restrictive… like MIT. Some dont require you to go if you get accepted ED. I think it is Early Action that requires you to go.</p>
<p>You can EA at MIT, Caltech, and UChicago all at once. That’s probably the most strategic route. I’ll tell you what I did though. I was in a similar situation to your friend, but Stanford was by far my number one choice, so I went for it. I got in SCEA. I had much better scores and ecs though and my recs were phenomenal; however, my GPA was only about a 3.8 thanks to a *<strong><em>ty freshman year and a B- sophomore year with this crazy </em></strong> teacher in spanish. His GPA difference between the early round and regular round is negligible, it will have no effect whatsoever. If he really, really wants Stanford above anything else, I’d say tell him to apply early, he’s got the URM hook with being Mexican. If his heart isn’t totally into it I’d say apply to the EA schools to maximize the chance of getting into a top school then Stanford RD.</p>
<p>ED is binding, EA is not, SCEA is restrictive meaning you can only apply to one school. UPenn, Dartmouth, WashU, JHU have ED for example; MIT, Caltech, UChicago have EA; Stanford and Yale have SCEA.</p>