Here’s another data point: My son (not a URM or first-generation student) applied to Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard at approximately the same time in the early fall—way before the SCEA deadline. He applied SCEA to Yale but was certain he wanted to apply to the others because he wasn’t sure how he’d feel in the spring and also wanted to be able to compare financial aid offers (if he got in). His original list had 11 schools on it, including a couple of other Ivys, a few UCs, and some other less prestigious schools he just really liked. Because he had to apply to the UCs before hearing from Yale, he did; around the same time, he also sent in one other application to another school (not an Ivy) he liked a lot. Then he got into Yale early. He immediately withdrew his UC applications, even though he almost certainly would have been accepted, possibly with one of the Regents’ scholarships. He had no interest in applying to schools for “bragging rights”—a waste of time and money, and he didn’t want to take someone else’s potential spot. In the end, he got into all his schools, and for HYP and Stanford, the financial aid was ultimately comparable (though not at first). Deciding was very difficult—even though the schools were quite different, there were things he really liked about each one, especially Yale. He finally chose Stanford, though—he’s planning to major in computer science, and in the 6–7 months between the time he filed his applications and received all the decisions, he’d learned much more about the state of computer science at each school; for him, that was the deciding factor.