Some background: White male, son of immigrant father and highly educated mother who is out of the workforce due to family issues. I graduated in May '20 from a small liberal arts college that is not known for STEM research. 3.65 GPA, 3.75 in physics. Departmental honors and institutional honors (cum laude). Was involved in advising other members of the physics club. Held executive positions on club sports team. My research experience includes nine months building solid-state lasers, one year of exoplanet telescope installation and operation, three months of biophysics research while abroad, a summer REU in galactic astronomy, and a senior thesis in galaxy evolution (1.25 years and counting). 3 oral presentations, 3 poster presentations, but no publications (

My current interests are in numerical relativity, particle astrophysics, GW physics, and neutrino and dark sector physics, among others.
Anyways, here's my initial list after some research and emails to some members of departments. Not in order of preference, but the order of "gut-chances-of-getting-in." The total number of schools is 20, which I acknowledge is a lot. Due to my REU, I am granted a fee waiver for schools within the Big 10 academic alliance (*). As a result, 10 schools are without app fees, so I figure I might as well go big or go home.
Reach
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Chicago *
Cornell
California Institute of Technology
Columbia University
Stanford
Yale
Penn
Match
Penn State *
University of Washington-Seattle
Ohio State *
University of Wisconsin-Madison *
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor *
Northwestern *
University of California-Santa Cruz
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities *
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign *
Safety
Michigan State *
Rutgers *
I recognize it is ambitious, but after speaking with the few from my school who went on to graduate school, they recommended the shotgun approach. I emailed at least 3 people in every department, and all got back to me (except Wisconsin) encouraging me to apply. The level of communication varied, and it was difficult to discern if there was mutual interest in taking me as a student, or if people are trying to get admissions numbers up to compensate for COVID.
Any advice is much appreciated! It is a strange time to be applying for graduate school. I hope everyone else is finding their way okay.