He could look at McGill in Montreal if he is looking for a top-notch, high-stats university that doesn’t require any essays. (Although I’m not sure they would meet many of his other requirements). I think the no-essay might be true of some of the other Canadian universities too, which are much more stats-oriented and less holistic than similar caliber US schools.
McGill also tends to provide a decision fairly quickly, which is nice.
Re: costs, please note that McGill charges a different tuition for Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Engineering and “Bachelor of Art and Science”. Also, of course, the amounts are in Canadian dollars, so you need to convert those amounts.
He is planning to do EA at either or both UVM and UMass. These two plus Holy Cross should give him some options. Still hoping for ED at Dartmouth, but of course that’s a long shot.
Thanks everyone for you input-- it has helped me think through the options and kept me somewhat sane.
Can I suggest that your son consider completing and submitting one or more apps for schools other than Dartmouth prior to submitting his Dartmouth ED app? My daughter highly recommended that after her admission cycle was complete. She felt like her later apps and essays where much better than her first one or two and was glad she did her safeties/apps she cared less about first, before she took her shot at Stanford, which is where she ended up.
This is a key point:
he needs to complete his safety&likely applications before he finishes his ED app, because after he’s sent the first ones he’ll see that a couple things went wrong or could be better and he can correct them.
I agree with this. DD only decided to apply to her dream school right before RD deadlines (for reasons only a teen can explain) and regretted not doing so REA. Ultimately it worked out for her but I feel like her essays were much stronger than early on. She is an amazing writer but even so, as she tweaked them for each school they became tighter, had more depth.