This is like an Aha moment for me; you are right. Although I try to convince myself that brand name doesn’t matter, I have always wanted to go to an ivy. My concern is that although my dream school is UPenn, it doesn’t have a really strong stem program, and my low GPA hurts my chances in some of the top stem schools like Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Cornell, etc. So now I have 3 options: 1) Apply ED to UPenn Engineering, which is a wonderful school and if I’m accepted, be part of their engineering program, even if it’s not among the top 20 in the nation I could still have a good education and Ivy League diploma; 2)Apply ED to an almost impossible school like Stanford, since you only live once, why not try the impossible; and leave no regrets; or 3) don’t ED any school, just EA Georgia Tech, and EA or Regular other ivies, so I could choose to go to a very professional STEM school with a relatively okay chance of admission if I am luckily accepted. I am so sorry that I made this so complicated and long, which one do you think would be the best choice?