Match small town student to large universites in a city?

One thing about your list - you don’t show a test score. Being from Wyoming will help - but NYU and BU for sure are reaches. You also have big - UCI, SDSU, and then smaller - USF, Macadlester.

You say you don’t need aid - but that does not mean you want to pay $80K a year. Ask your parents - if so, take the Ivies off. As you point out they are reaches anyway - but they also have no merit.

If you want to be in Philly - and I’m not saying to apply there - but Drexel (Penn’s neighbor) would be a better fit admission and aid wise. I still say Charleston would be a strong fit for you -it’s very up and coming.

If college towns - sizable in their own right - would be ok. Oregon, CU Boulder, and Arizona would fit - with Oregon and AZ in decent size cities. AZ and Oregon are affordable…you may not need aid but it doesn’t mean you don’t want a great deal.

Someone mentioned U Denver before - it’s fantastic for international programs.

One question - your weighted GPA isn’t much higher than your unweighted so I assume your rigor isn’t great. That’s ok - if you take whatever APs your school offers. If they offer 20 and you take 3, it’s not great. If they offer 4 and you’ve taken three…that’s helpful.

Schools that are stretches for you are like Rochester, UMD, UF / FSU. So your targets are gonna be a lower level - and there’s some great ones that yes have greek life, but you’ll always find your crowd. Targets to me (and even safety) that offer a Japanese studies environment and that are in a city: U of Kentucky, etc. or a U of South Carolina (big out of state contingent) in addition to Arizona and Oregon mentioned above. Just realize that you’ll be with no one from Wyoming - but I guess that’s sort of the point.

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