When you started your thread, you started it with a 3.64 GPA and did not indicate that you were an international student who had attempted to convert a GPA. At many U.S. high schools, a 3.64GPA would be a challenging GPA to get into Columbia or MIT (unless the school was known for particularly hard grading). Once it was determined that you were an international student and what your original GPA was (and how to consider that GPA) and the fact that you’re at the top of your high school, then that changed people’s analysis of your chances at these schools (i.e. an extremely small chance, to a chance that is not likelier than 20%).
If you’re interested in theoretical physics, this ranking appears to be based on the number of publications associated with them: Theoretical Physics in the US: 100+ Best colleges Ranked.
Additionally, you may also be interested in this website where you can see which institutions created the greatest number of alumni who went on to earn a doctorate in physics: Baccalaureate origins of doctoral recipients. If you look at the number of doctorates earned in physics and then divide by the undergraduate population, you might get a sense of how common/frequent it is for students at a given university to receive sufficient support and who have sufficient interest to complete their PhD.
Do you have universities in your home country that you can afford, that you are extremely likely to be accepted to, and that you would be happy to attend? Colleges that meet those three criteria (in your home country or anywhere else) should be the bedrock of your college search. Those are the schools you want to find first. Then, once you’ve found schools that meet those criteria, you can start looking at more selective schools where you may want to “shoot your shot.”
Based on your GPA and likely class rank, I am going to assume a competitive SAT/ACT score based on how I will sort this list.
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
- Stony Brook (NY)
- U. of Arizona
- U. of Colorado - Boulder
Likely (60-79%)
- Penn State
- Rutgers-New Brunswick (NJ)
- U. of Illinoise-Urbana Champaign
- U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities
- Ohio State
- Texas A&M
Toss-Up (40-59%)
- U. of Maryland
- U. of Washington
- U. of Wisconsin-Madison
Lower Probability (20-39%)
- U. of Rochester (NY)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
- Princeton
- Harvard
- MIT
- U. of Michigan
- Cornell
- U. of Chicago
Obviously, there are an assortment of other schools that could have gone on this list, and we know very little about what you want from your college education. But perhaps this framework might give you a better sense of how to organize your college search.