<p>Between Northwerstern, JHU and Duke, I think Northwestern is your best bet given your interests (Chemical Engineering and city life). </p>
<p>Michigan would be a good taget school (assuming you match that 2100+ SAT score with excellent grades in school), and is actually stronger than your ED schools in ChemE. Michigan is also located in Ann Arbor, one of the nicest college towns. If you apply to Michigan, make sure you apply EA. It is much harder for international students to get in RD.</p>
<p>A good safety for you would be Wisconsin-Madison. It is located in Madison, one of the greatest college towns and Wisconsin has a top 5 ChemE department and a reasonable cost of attendance ($40k/year, vs $55k at Michigan and $60k at NU, Duke or JHU).</p>