Not speaking from personal experience, of course
You better believe you'll be ten-checking that CommonApp essay before it's ready for any other school. Don't be like me and apply to safeties first and consistently find new grammatical errors each time... whoops.
Now that's some legit yield protection for ya
It will be good practice for flat-out rejection from your top choice.
Penn State is much easier to get into, and since most confuse the two, lots of people will still be impressed at your "Ivy League" education!preety please? i'm so nervous right now.
My 7-year old cousin wanted to see what “college stuff” was all about, so he sat next to me while I was writing a scholarship essay. It usually takes me HOURS to come up with a couple of halfway decent sentences, but I finished that essay in less than an hour to impress him with my typing speed and ~advanced~ vocabulary. Try it!
Show her your BFS. Big Fortnite Stats
A top 10 math department and mediocre business school can occupy the same campus (it happens). Some elite schools have completely marginal, unranked programs that get no attention or funding, be careful you don't end up in one of those. Schools can have varied, very domain specific reputations. This is something that high school students and parents have almost no idea about, and something most college students don't realize until they are about to graduate.