Schools - love them, love them not

I have been vacillating between the various schools. Haven't been able to pin my final list down. I have a basic core group, consisting of Wharton, Chicago and Kellogg as my top reach schools, with Stern, Michigan and Cornell as my safe bets. I probably don't need any more on the list, but can't resist flirting with Duke, Harvard, Columbia and MIT. I had pretty much dropped Duke and MIT, wasn't considering them for different reasons, but spoke with someone who is pretty knowledgable about this and it was his opinion that I have very low chances of getting into Harvard, and apparently Columbia doesn't like Techies from the valley. So I might drop them from the list. Duke is pretty much out, but the surprising recommendation from him was MIT.

Another strategy I need to work out is which round to apply for each of the schools. My 4/3 or 4/4 strategy apparently might be flawed. Ah, decisions, decisions decisions. Did a round of the usual blogers and found that they are going great guns on the essays and are pretty firm in the school selection list. Having a strategy laid out definitely helps in research and writing the essays. Scrabbling around like what I am doing is going to hurt me.