Chance a nervous junior from a tiny Bay Area city for some crazy reaches + tell me how to improve!

First of all, you sound like someone whose future achievements could make a college proud to claim you as their alum. I bet that admissions officers will see you that way, too.

I think you’ve realized that you’re not going to get “merit” aid at any of those top private schools you’ve mentioned, despite the fact that a household income of 225K/yr in the Bay area doesn’t go that far. Still, those private colleges are probably not going to deem you in need of financial aid.

I think that your best bet is to focus your applications on the many excellent UCs. I think that you might get into all of them, certainly would get into one or two. What would you do if you got into Princeton, without any fin aid? Is your family ready and able to pay over 360K for college for you, and then possibly another 250K for law school? Even if they could, would it be a wise decision when you can get an excellent education in-state for a third of that price?

You need to have a very frank discussion with your parents about college and law school money. From what you’ve said, they seem to expect that you’re going to go to an Ivy on a merit scholarship, and it’s just extremely unlikely that will happen, even if you do get accepted.

If you were my child, I’d be encouraging you to do your best to get into the UCs, and plan to apply for privately funded special interest scholarships for which I think you may be well-qualified.