Hi! I have been through this a couple of times now, with great kids with great grades, 1580+sats, national merits, lots of honors and ecs etc. This is a tough process, and I hope what I’ve learned will be of some help.
EA is the only realistic shot that most unhooked, high-achieving kids have at HYPS. (And the odds are still long - for example, Harvard has taken around 10% of kids who scored 1600 in recent years.) If you do not go EA, you are in a 1-3% bucket, and those 1-3% are almost all either hooked or have a unique talent (e.g. math olympiad, published author). It isn’t too far from the truth to say that it is false advertising for these schools to claim that there are actually spots available for normal, unhooked kids in the RA pool. This being said, occasionally a typical, bright kid beats the odds and gets in RA. But it’s almost like winning the lottery.
As for financial aid, since EA is non-binding, if you don’t like your package, you can go somewhere else. So EA will not negatively impact your financial aid situation.
As for top boarding schools, I still think that graduating in the top 5% or so of schools like Andover and Exeter will get you some attention from the AOs. But at these schools, many, perhaps most, of the accepted HYPS will be hooked, and the ones who are unhooked will be EA. These schools place a lot of athletes, and a lot of alums and wealthy/famous kids. On the whole, I think that the average bright kid from a big, famous boarding school probably has a disadvantage due to the competition, and to the fact that these schools have been on the other side of the admirable drive to diversify college campuses.
The parent alum ‘hook’ is fading, as institutions preference other groups (for example, Princeton and Harvard now actively seek low-income students). This hook is best used with EA - in the RA pool it certainly does not have the pull it used to, unless the alum in question is famous or connected. The distant relative alum provides almost no help (unless you’re applying to Yale as a Bush grandchild).
As a matter of application strategy, a winning approach is to highlight a unique talent or quality that you possess. The kid with one super-strong activity, especially if it’s interesting, difficult or suggests a path to future fame, may fare well if the admissions committee smiles upon the activity. So AnonMomof2’s kiddo may have a decent shot. Gone are the days of the ‘well-rounded’ applicant.
The silver lining is that there are many schools that offer overall experiences that will probably be better than HYPS for most kids. The quality of life and quality of teaching at these schools are not always on par with their reputations. There are quite a few LACs that offer more attention, more access to faculty and, arguably, a better overall experience. But a name is still a name…
I wish you and your children the best of luck,