I personally think as International Student, living in the US and with need of merit based financial aid, you might want to consider applying to private US colleges where you will be Top 5-10% of accepted students, in terms of GPA, Test Scores, EC’s etc. As you learned the hard way, you are unlikely to find this scenario at the schools you primarily applied to last time around, as they predominantly are focused on need based aid for eligible students, excluding Internationals. You will find that there are many excellent schools in this category, where you will be glad to attend. Given your status as International Student with need for merit aid, I would not call them safety schools, as competition for admission with merit aid will be high in almost all cases. The exception to this rule would be those universities/colleges which clearly state that International Students are eligible for institutional need based aid, of which there are very few.