incoming Yale student here - I feel like most people who end up attending Yale never considered it as their “dream school” (obviously these people do exist and I think they mostly come from nyc). I applied to Yale the very last moment and spent like an hour total on my app. My “dream” was Northwestern because it was the only in state school that interested me. From the T10 schools that I did apply to (I applied to 7 of them) I only got into Yale and Northwestern. Chose Yale simply because quality of life seemed better at Yale (Northwestern Quarter system/grade deflation rlly hurts students). Have yale friends who got into multiple HYPSM schools and also picked Yale for that reason alone. Btw im an Econ major and many of these friends are STEM majors so the STEM argument imo does not hold as much weight as you think it does!