I have known of high stats and good ec students getting rejected from all their reaches. Typically they may be wait-listed in my experience but then not taken off of any waitlist. You have to remember that there are approximately 40,000 high schools in the U.S. so you have at least that many valedictorians. With the ivies on average getting between 25K to 35K applications and accepting around 2K of the applicants, it leaves a lot of high stats students in the reject pile. Like others have mentioned, applying to more reaches does not increase your chances since college admissions simply does not work that way (which a lot of students and parents do believe as we see every year here on CC.). A few years ago a salutorian from a local high school got locked out of reach schools so her family asked for my help to see where she went wrong. I looked at her application and saw that she left half of the activities/honors charts blank (e.g. failing to list her National Merit award) and that her essays didn’t really answer the questions asked. After reviewing her application, I then wasn’t surprised by her long list of rejections. Don’t make the same mistake-there are many organizations out there that can help you with your application.
As an aside, be sure to partake in as many diversity fly-ins as you possibly can and still keep your grades up. Applications for many of them are starting to be due now so you don’t want to miss those deadlines. My own children did them and it helped a lot with admissions and scholarships. You can find a list on the website “getmetocollege” and in the Hispanic Forum here on CC. Ask every college if they do diversity fly-ins since some school may not be on the list and participate in some type of fly-in. Also reach out to the admissions staff to find out who is responsible for Hispanic or AA recruitment. Introduce yourself to them and ask about any special programs or scholarship opportunities. I work with a lot of URM students and those contacts don’t guarantee admission but do help in the process. Here is the link to fly-in programs. http://getmetocollege.org/what-colleges-look-for/2017-fall-diversity-visit-programs
Also look at colleges that offer good scholarships for National Hispanic Scholar/Recognition Program students. This would be a good place to get an affordable safety or two. Again you can get more info in the Hispanic Forum. Be sure to work on your applications now and try to apply to as many schools early action. Witih schools that are SCEA, they will allow you to apply to other schools early action where you are trying to meet scholarship deadlines so you could apply to Princeton early and other colleges.
Look at the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship program because some of my high-achieving URM students have been selected and it has helped them tremendously. I know there is a new Gates Scholarship program starting this year but I don’t have the details. There is a big push these days for Latinos in STEM so try to capture some of those awards or scholarships dollars during your senior year. The Hispanic Heritage Foundation Youth Awards application is due Oct. 2, here is the link: http://hispanicheritage.org/programs/leadership/youth-awards/ Be sure to apply to that program-the scholarship is just for $1K but receiving that award is very prestigious and will open many more doors for you. My DD was selected in the fall of her senior year and it keeps on providing her with additional opportunites. Look at programs offered by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation like the Latino Coder Summit, ESA Fellowship etc. Also joing HHF’s L.O.F.T (Latinos on the Fast Track) lists serve since many opportunities are discussed there. Since you are in FRC- look at the scholarship list on the FIRST website and apply to a few of the colleges that give out really good scholarships for it. For example only 40 students apply to the ASME scholarship and they award 14 of them of $5K each.
Although you sound like you want the ivies-don’t overlook schools like WashU(which has the rodriguez scholarship which is full tuition (I may have the name wrong) or UMIch(which I understand just increased financial aid to OOS) or Georgia Tech (which has the Stamps Scholar program and I know of some Latinos who got it). Those schools are very good and may be “slightly” easier to get into than the ivies. Be sure to run the net price calculator for each of your schools. Two years ago one of my URM students who was very low income got into every UC but the financial aid wasn’t that great with her having to kick in between $8K to $11K (this was above loans and work-study). I was able to negoiate a bit more aid for her from Yale by pointing out things like she would need winter clothes and that the airfare allowance wasn’t enough for her so when applying always ask about financial aid. By the way Johns Hopkins has some great scholarships for URMs through the Bloomberg scholarships so JHU ended up giving this same student a full-ride of financial aid with no loans (which she unfortunately turned down).
Good luck. Feel free to PM if you have any questions.