Choosing the Right School for EA/ED (Ivys/Duke/Stanford/MIT) - International Student

There is no good data to determine which of those 11 schools (Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke) would give the greatest ED relative advantage for someone just like you (22 year old Israeli etc.) Nor is there any good way to identify the most selective of these 11 that is at least N% likely to admit you in the ED round. If you simply want to maximize your chances of getting in somewhere, as long as it’s one of these 11 (for some reason), then just pick the one that is least selective for ED. That probably would be Cornell.

Of course, attending Cornell (or any of the others) won’t guarantee you a spot at HLS. Nor will HLS guarantee achievement of any other low-odds objective you’ll no doubt set for yourself once you’re there. You’d be correct if you think HLS on a resume will at least open a few doors in the hiring process, or open them wider than most other law schools. That’s at least 7 years in the future, so you ought to be thinking too about your quality of life for the rest of your 20s (which will be gone by then).