Interesting discussion here. I had to argue with my D19 who has a pretty compelling set of stats and activities to not apply to the ivies. They aren’t in our budget and as we all know, they don’t give merit. I asked her why she wanted to apply, and she admitted it was just to brag. So we nixed it. We did apply to 3 “reaches” that offer very limited merit - Vandy, Duke, and Wash U - but if I’d been more thoughtful we would have only done Duke, as she thought Vandy was just ok after a visit and only applied to Wash U to shut me up (I’m an alum) and she doesn’t want to go. I actually had a harder time trying to explain the reality to my parents.