All I simply said was that the student, in my opinion, should not apply Early Decision - that’s it. I don’t disagree with the comment you made otherwise.
We are talking about one school - because that’s all you can apply Early Decision to…well and ED2 afterward. The reason I state this is - every college looks at “demonstrated need” differently and those who show income tables - such as the Rice Investment - all have little disclaimers for them to escape as they wish (by formula of course). And the CC is littered with kids who are “crushed” because they assumed they were getting X and they got X minus a lot of dollars.
Beyond that, there is no risk applying to whatever schools quantity wise a student desires - because early action and regular decision require no risk, just time and money.