Late to this thread but it appeared at the bottom of another post I was reading and caught my eye, since a young relative of mine went through the process of applying to US Engineering schools from Canada a couple of years ago. Some information from that process that will hopefully be useful to you:
MIT accepts only 3 Canadian students per year. (They used to accept more but now accept roughly 125 international students a year, to keep international admission need blind, and 3 slots go to Canadians. You can find the numbers for any country here: Statistics | ISO . In 2022, there were 13 Canadian undergrads total across 4 years and this was true for the last 3 years. Before that it was 6 per year.) So the odds are not 5%; nor are the odds 2%, which is MIT’s published admit rate for internationals. Instead the odds for Canadians are essentially zero. This is not the place to EA. If you want to apply to MIT, do it RD since there is no advantage in EA for MIT.
Instead EA to Princeton, or ED to Cornell or Columbia. Princeton is a top Ivy with excellent engineering that is need blind to internationals and accepts close to 30 Canadians a year. (Ten times more than MIT!) Applying EA to Princeton increases acceptance rates from 4.4% to 15.5%.
Cornell is another Ivy, arguably slightly less prestigious overall than Princeton but with a larger, better-known Engineering program. Acceptance rates to Cornell Engineering are only 4.4% according to the data on their website and only 9% are internationals, compared to 15% for Princeton, so it is tougher for internationals.
Another great option is Columbia in NYC. They have a great engineering school that is among the top Ivies for placement in top tech companies and engineering companies in the US. (See this link and scroll down for tech and engineering ranks: Reddit - Dive into anything) They are need blind for internationals, and 18% of the admitted class is international, the largest proportion among all the Ivy+ schools. It is tough to get into (11% ED, 3.9% RD) but admit rates are a bit higher for its School of Engineering than for Columbia College, its liberal arts school.
These schools are different and you want to consider where you’d be happy. Columbia is a large, urban school without much hand-holding, so a bit more like a Canadian university, but with spectacular buildings and quadrangle in a fantastic city. Princeton is smaller, has the semi-secluded grassy campus, beautiful architecture, attentive administrators etc. that people associate with Ivies. Cornell is a large university, like Columbia, but is rural and secluded; nonetheless it very driveable from southern Ontario (and is also the best known of these 3 by the average Canadian).
Since you’re Canadian, you should consider applying for the Loran and Schulich scholarships. They fully fund your studies ($120,000 over 4 years for Schulich Engineering, $100,000 for Loran), provide guaranteed lab positions, networking with faculty, summer internships, and a ton of prestige at Canadian universities. You could take one to Waterloo, U of T, McGill, UBC if you were selected and have a great experience.
Finally, Waterloo engineering is not a back-up unless you have a 95+ average, and even then… (see probability of getting an offer as a function of your average here: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/undergraduate-students/application-process/admission-averages).
Good luck!
Edited to reflect MomofThree24 comment below