You would qualify for merit at NEU, which might be why you could be WL. Not because of it's reputation or selectivity. The more popular merit schools can reject the NMFs and high stats kids purely because there are more kids than money. Even if you are not looking for money.
You need to rethink matches and be quite clear you would not apply for FA at all, and/ or need merit. As a soph this might not be set in stone as you imagine. Can pay in full is not the same as your folks actually paying 250k plus for a non tippy top school. Sure they would pony up for MIT/Harvard, but maybe not NEU or GT/washu.