Ah, I see. I thought you meant that you were eligible for need-based aid.
The thing is that for schools like Vanderbilt and UChicago, their merit scholarships go to their most competitive applicants - the ones they would be losing to HYPSM schools if they didn’t sweeten the deal. You’re a great applicant, but you’ll do well to get into your reaches at all - merit money is pretty unlikely. Schools like Denison, on the other hand, may well give you scholarships. The question is whether you would prefer the schools that would give you merit to your in-state flagship. The Colleges That Change Lives website is a good place to start, in terms of profiling campuses where you might get good merit offers: College Profiles – Colleges That Change Lives
In terms of financial safeties, you may want to look at some of the options in the Midwest Student Exchange Program. https://msep.mhec.org With the reciprocity rates, you can end up paying less for some of these schools than for IL schools. Consider U of Nebraska Lincoln, which (unlike UIUC) is located in the state capital, with the attendant opportunities for political involvement. If you’re interested in smaller schools, look at Truman State (Missouri’s public honors LAC) and U of Minnesota Morris (Minnesota’s public LAC - a particularly good destination if you’re interested in political issues affecting Native Americans, as that is a strength and 20% of the student population is Native American). These schools would be substantially cheaper than UIUC and offer an excellent education. Law school is expensive, so consider how your financial resources will cover undergrad plus law school, as you consider what’s affordable. Certainly worth comparing these to the IL non-flagship campuses on your list, in terms of costs and student experience.
Since you’re so active politically, the other aspect is to consider where you might want to be. As mentioned above, being in a state capital can be helpful. (Willamette, another CTCL school, is great in this regard and would be a great place to hunt merit.) Do you want to be in a battleground state where your efforts would matter most? (Denison is right outside of Columbus, the Ohio capital.) Do you want to sharpen your political chops by going somewhere where your views aren’t in the majority? (Hello, UNL!) Do you want to be in a progressive area that’s an incubator for policy innovations? (Boston-area schools are great in this regard, but tough to get merit at schools like BU and BC; Brandeis could have merit potential, though, or the Worcester schools - Clark and Holy Cross) A mixed setting? (At U of Utah, you could get residency after the first year,making it cheaper than UIUC in the long run; and Salt Lake City is a fascinating mix of conservative and progressive elements, with a lot of progressive social policy being developed).
Anyway, lots to think about, and lots of interesting possibilities.