You are so busy worrying about what everybody else thinks but not looking in the mirror- which is where all of this starts and ends.
Not too long ago you knew Rice was your best option.
Even more recently, you knew NU was so much better of an option that you went through the whole application process again to be able to choose it over Rice.
Now the most important thing (apparently before you even go to NU) is that you know “going to a college near home” is best and where you would be happier.
Well, frankly, I “know” that I would be happier living at the beach, but I also “know” that until we stop paying for the Collegekid’s tuitions I need an income that I can’t get at the beach, so there we are. You want to be near your friends & family, and given that the college experience hasn’t been what it was supposed to be for your cohort, who can blame you? But besides that, what makes what you “know” this time different & better than what you knew the last two times?
No judgement from me: I know nothing about you / your choices & options / etc. And we all learn by trying things and then adjusting when we see how something plays out in real life. There is no magic number of times that you should / shouldn’t keep adjusting and refining your choices.
But: your post doesn’t show many signs of you having backed up and put some hard thought into the what and why. If you haven’t put all the excuses to one side and looked across the whole arc -from how you made each choice and how it played out, the lessons you thought you learned and then realized that there was more to learn- and thought through what you know about yourself and the world that you didn’t know each of the previous times, there is no good reason to think that you know any better this time than last.
My guess is, once you have done that thinking your anxiety about everybody else’s opinions will settle down, because you will know that you are charting your path the best way you know how, which is all any human can do.