I think a kid who is smart enough to be a sensible candidate for Dartmouth or Columbia might be able to do a very good job in researching those schools, and then writing an essay about why they are appealing–and then go on to do this for five or six additional highly selective schools. And one kid can find two very different schools to be appealing, for different reasons. I confess that my kids didn’t find Dartmouth appealing because of its location, but they both liked both Brown and Columbia, although those two are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of rigidity of curriculum. They enjoyed (mostly) writing college essays. It wasn’t hard to write a “Why Brown” essay that was different from the “Why Columbia” essay–and both were still true.