Hi, so basically I plan to exchange to Japan for an academic year and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to go to. The options are UToyko, Waseda and Keio, I'm not considering the other programs offered here at my university as I believe these three are the best ones.
I study Economics and international relations, but I think all these three have a pretty good program for it. I've gone through some past reddit posts of people exchanging to Utoyko and they were saying its kinda too studious. I'm not sure if its still the same rn, but I'm assuming more or less the same as it being like the top university in Japan. I've also heard from people saying Waseda is more welcoming for international students (Im east asian btw, idk if they'd be able to tell but yea). For Keio, I was googling and its saying its econ program is very popular, so all three of them seem to have its own advantages. I did self study Japanese and finished intermediate level at my school here in the US, should be around N3.
Besides that tho, I also play volleyball and run, and from what I'm seeing is that Waseda has a better vibe for it? since like they won college championship and got placed second in this year's hakone ekiden. Though I believe all japanese univerisities have quite good vibes for sports, please lmk if yall have experience with any and which one is better.
For living, Keio offers dorms which I find pretty nice, where I'd get to chose to live with local japanese people i guess. For Waseda, its either dorms or homestay for the options given. UToyko i think is also dorms, but I did see other people saying that there isn't much space of rooms for incoming international students, so I might need to find housing on my own?
So based on the above, what I have rn is Waseda as my top choice, Keio then Utokyo. Budget wise they're all kinda close from the unoffical budget I'm seeing my schools gives rn.
Thank you for your time.
by DifferenceNo6874