<p>Thanks for taking the time to make such a thorough post momrath. To answer your first question, yes I am an international student. I know that location, size, and general environment, etc… matter in choosing the college that I want to attend, and I realize that I need safeties and a strong list of schools, but I would really just like to know if anyone could look at my statistics, and assuming that I get good teacher recs and write good essays, predict what my chances would be of getting into a top 15 or top 20 school. For example, if I think that MIT seems like a good fit for me, I still wouldn’t visit it because I know that my chances of getting accepted to MIT are infinitesimally small.</p>