@homerdog We were in a similar boat with D16. She did not apply ED. She wasn’t set on any one school—she liked all the schools on her list (except her financial safety, which was unfortunate)–and we (parents) agonized over her applying ED and being bound to spend $250K for a 4-yr education.
D applied RD everywhere, no EA anywhere. High stats but got waitlisted at a long long of full-pay top LACs including her top choice, but got into her match LAC with good merit plus a couple full-pay reach-matches. We sent her off to the accepted student days on her own and to revisit her original top-choice. She decided against getting off the waitlist there as she felt more ‘love’ for the schools that accepted her. She liked all the schools she got into, and ended up accepting the one where she got good merit and is having a great time there doing all the things she’d planned. She loves her school, but as a parent, I wish she’d had a few more match LACs with merit on her application list. Some of her friends were choosing between 3-4 schools that were very affordable (good merit or WUE schools they really liked). I don’t think it would have changed things had she gotten the same offer where she did, but it was a risky list to only have one school that would give good merit.
I agonized a lot about prestige during D16’s senior year. I must have worn a trough in our bedroom from pacing at night. What made it harder was not being able to talk about it. If someone else is paying full-freight, then you talking about agonizing over that is like dropping a lead balloon. If someone else is not full-pay, then there is the awkwardness of revealing that you are. We live in an small house, 10+ year old cars, thrift store instead of Macy’s types etc, so you’d never guess. Our kids are in private school, so that seemed to add another layer of awkwardness. ‘So you paid for private school instead of public and now you don’t want to cough up a ‘prestigious’ college?’. I put ‘prestigious’ in quotes since some of the ‘prestigious’ schools were tiny NE schools I’d never heard of (before CC) and I thought it was insane to think our instate flagship was less ‘prestigious’. Oh, and I could NOT talk with my two closest friends who live in New England during that senior year. Both felt that prestige of the school is very important, essential, and that D must do everything possible to get into a ‘prestigious’ school and MUST definitely get off the waitlist on her tippy-top schools. ‘She need to show them she bleeds their school colors’. Sigh.