Am I Ivy Material? (And Stanford)

Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
UPenn
Cornell
Dartmouth
Brown
Stanford

If you are only applying to these elite schools and some safeties, and lack any mid-range – while I think you will likely get into at least one of those elite schools – you should definitely apply to a handful of schools above the “safety” line and below the level of your elite choices. Maybe pick five from this list, or schools similar in stature and selectivity:

Georgetown
Rice
Notre Dame
Emory
Cal-Berkeley
Michigan
Virginia
Boston College
U of Rochester
Tulane

Each of those is probably either a high match or a match for you. Why are they important? Imagine if you didn’t get into any of your “Ivies+Stanford” list… you would want to have a buffer zone between them and your true safeties. You can get a great education at all of those schools, but they are not (in some cases, not nearly…) as difficult to get into as the Ivies and Stanford.