<p>johnwesley- The student may not be admitted to his first tier Ivy. His list showed a definite geographical preference for the east. As well as doubts about his safeties…thus the suggestion to ignore his GC’s suggestion of limiting the number of applications and including more Ivies.</p>
<p>I would argue that his “tolerance” for Brown, Penn, or Cornell would be higher than settling for BU. </p>
<p>And most of the time, (i.e. 93%) “they” (HYP applicants) can’t have what they are looking for. Only about 7% can.</p>
<p>Who’s talking about BU? My point is if the OP is interested in east coast colleges of a certain style and pretentiouness, they can do a lot better than Penn and Cornell. Amherst, Swarthmore or Wesleyan all share similar values with the Ivy League and the OP’s chances of admission would be at least as reasonable, if not more so. In fact, the OP would have about eleven different colleges to choose from, if they looked at NESCAC alone.</p>