Freaking out picking a college

I’m also very into social justice

I wouldn’t worry too much about what happens with housing at Wisconsin sophomore year. You will consolidate friendships freshman year and I suspect the drop in upper classmen residing on campus, in part, is due to joining sororities and fraternities. Also, there is lots of rental housing adjacent to campus which is probably cheaper than living in the dorms.

For you, Wisconsin would be about 20K cheaper annually than Rhodes. As it checks most of your boxes, I’d go to Wisconsin.

If you end up in a sorority sophomore year, THAT will be your tight-knit community. Also, you’ll live in the sorority house sophomore year. Junior and senior years you’ll live in off-campus housing with friends. It’s very common in large state universities for students not to live in campus housing after freshman year. At Wisconsin, many students don’t even live in campus housing FRESHMAN year. There’s a private dorm (it is a dorm, but not run by the U) just off campus.

Take Oberlin off the table. You cannot borrow enough to make up the difference (unless your parents borrow that and you agree to repay them).