I am not reading “undershoot”. I am reading “Understand that while you are a stellar candidate, a 5% or whatever acceptance rate means a 95% rejection rate- and a VERY large number of those rejections are of kids with stellar stats and everything else”. Just a reality check. A kid that’s the best thing their HS has seen in a decade usually doesn’t understand the depth of the applicant pool at Wharton M&T or Stanford. And if the kid is genuinely excited about the “back up plan”- then hey, shoot your shot. But if the kid has reluctance about the backups– the solution to that is finding more suitable backups, not drilling down on how MIT doesn’t care about foreign language (which is both untrue and irrelevant).
OP- you sound terrific. I would not suggest ED’ing to a school that is not your absolute top pick. It just opens the door to regret– either way. You get in- hey, you’ll never know if you could have gotten in to your favorite. You don’t get in- hey, maybe if you’d played it differently, you’d be at your top choice right now. So figure out your top choice, apply early, then work on those back ups with all your heart. Good luck!