City Year...

I am currently filling out an application for this program called City Year. It's a year of volunteering in a school in an inner city where attendance and grades are low. 

The biggest difficulty I'm having is with deciding what city to apply to. The locations they have are Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbia, Columbus, Detroit, Little Rock,  LA,  Louisiana,  Miami,  New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, Rhode Island, San Antonio, San Jose,  Seattle, and DC. I'm not sure if I want to stay close to home or get away. So I've narrowed it down to Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. I would have gone for something warmer like Miami and LA. I would LOVE to do one of those but I'm afraid that too many people will apply to those places and I'll have much worse odds there than a colder not so 'vacation' spot. Chicago & Philly would be the farther choices and Boston & New York would be the closer choices. Since I'll only be living on a stipend (which will probably be only $200 a week) I figure it may be smarter to stick close to home. New York is VERY expensive (Duh) so I'm really really leaning towards Boston. It's close enough I won't miss out on anything with the Fam and I think my odds applying there will be pretty good. Thoughts?