@lookingforward, yes Dartmouth and Columbia are very different in all the obvious ways. You wanna make that same argument about Vassar and Wesleyan? Or Yale and Princeton, maybe Columbia and Penn? Is it really that hard to imagine that the same kid could be happy at both schools in those sets, or that a solid essay wouldn’t touch on the same themes for both schools?
Ok, your last post went up when I was typing the above. I get that 16-20 applications to top schools is too many, particularly if the criteria is only that they are top schools. But I am no longer sure that applying to four or five reaches along with a collection of match/safety/merit schools is as crazy as it initially sounds.