<p>Token, the anecdote you shared just illustrates my point -- a student who decides to apply to Yale and focuses all his other applications on match schools or safeties where he is likely to get merit money, as well as his in-state public -- under the rationale that Yale is the only school he wants badly enough that he is willing to ask his family to pay megabucks is seen by your interviewer friend as not really being Ivy caliber. (Unless, of course, what your friend really means is that the student who is not applying to several Ivy-caliber school probably doesn't come from a family of sufficient means... more enrollment management, this time on the financial front).</p>
<p>Your rationalization seems to be, well if the answer isn't what the college wants to hear, maybe the student shouldn't be going to that college. But that is just imbuing the college with some sort of omniscient ability to decide what the student really wants -- never mind what the student says. The point is -- its still none of the college's business. A smart applicant is going to be diplomatic and judicious in answering.</p>