I agree. International applicants do NOT have the same odds as US applicants. Harvard (and all the schools on your list) limit the number of international students to about 10% to 11% of an incoming freshman class. That means that Harvard admits about 160 to 190 international students per year. To see how many students from Canada are currently attending Harvard, go to: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics. From the pull-down menus, select STUDENTS, HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school) and CANADA. There are currently 137 students from Canada enrolled at Harvard who are freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors. That means that Harvard, on average, admits about 34 students a year from Canada.
Now Harvard doesn’t publish the number of applications from each country, but my guess would be several thousand (maybe more) Canadians apply each year for those limited slots. If 2,000 Canadians apply, a student from Canada has an overall chance of 1% to 2%. Those are terrible odds, no matter what your stats – so by all means apply, but understand the competition is tougher than you think. And, I suspect it’s the same at all the schools on your list.
Full Disclosure: My daughter had a roommate from Canada one year who was on Harvard’s ski team, so I suspect a number of Canadians are recruited athletes on the skiing and hockey teams, which further reduces the overall chances of a non-athlete from Canada.