<p>Here’s a rough pass based on your own criteria:</p>
<p>– Great academic rep: eliminate U of Iowa and American U (which have fine reps but not great ones)
– Study/Fun balance: eliminate U of Chicago, JHU, and CMU (by reputation)
– Nice weather: eliminate Penn, U of Chicago, CMU, U of Rochester, UW-Madison, U of Iowa, BC
– In a city: eliminate U of Iowa (despite your size scheme, Iowa City is not the same as Madison or Palo Alto), UNC, and U of VA
– Varied activities: too vague to use
– Nice campus: I can only vouch for Stanford, Duke, Rice, UNC, Chicago, and UW-Madison (last two eliminated above) - others are unknown to me.</p>
<p>This leaves you with:
Stanford
Duke
Rice
Vanderbilt
Berkeley (which you should count as HR because you are OOS)
Georgetown
GWU</p>
<p>You need to bring back in at least one “safety”, so I would say UW-Madison based on “nice campus”. I’d also suggest bringing back one of your matches, and note that your prospects at UVA are probably a little better than at UNC because they are more open to OOS applicants.</p>