<p>Yeah, kyledavid put it succinctly. Though I have a feeling the girl may have gotten in through an early notification program at Stanford (you apply RD and if your app is really good they tell you early that you’ll be admitted) and that is what she might have meant by “getting in early” at both schools which obviously would not be a violation of the restrictive early action agreement with Stanford. In your case, you definitely cannot apply early to both Stanford and Columbia without your admissions being rescinded from both. If Columbia is your first choice I think you can ED there and EA at MIT as well, different schools have different policies on whether you can apply somewhere else EA if you apply there ED (I know Cornell allows you to do this). If Stanford is your first choice you can SCEA there but nowhere else.</p>