@Penn95 and @Boothie007 (and others);
Why this emphasis on trying to figure out whether Duke or Penn (or others) are on a certain tier? I think it’s much fairer to say:
Tier 1: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT & Caltech (for STEM)
Tier 2: Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, Chicago, Brown, Cornell, Hopkins, Dartmouth, etc.
Doesn’t that pretty much state what you’re trying to convey? That is to say, if you get into Tier 1 schools, choose based on fit, and if you get into Tier 2 schools, chose based on fit. If you get into a Tier 1 school AND a tier 2 school, then maybe other perceived differences (in prestige, for instance) might matter.
Put another way, if someone gets into Duke and Northwestern, or Dartmouth and Chicago, fit should be the key factor. If you get into Dartmouth and Stanford, on the other hand, differences in (perceived) prestige could be taken into account.
Is that what you want to convey?