What are some good schools, preferably private, where sizable merit aid would be easily accessed with a 3.7uw gap, 4w, 34 act, good ECs.
Preferably in or within an hour of a large city! I want an urban setting. Thanks all. 
What do you want to study, and do you have any regional preferences?
St. mary’s of CA
Mills college lowered tuition to $28K recently
CUNY Macaulay program (for next year, deadline is passed for this year)
Temple
Haverford/ Bryn Mawr–BMC offers merit. Not sure about Haverford but they share campuses
Willamette U
Lewis and Clark
Puget Sound
Agnes Scott
Drexel
Wagner
Manhattan College
Manhattanville College
Marist
Union College
Ithaca College
Fordham
Simmons
Lake Forest
Take look at Rollins College in Orlando. Private LA college and amazing campus. Merit scholarship is worth over $230,000 if you qualify.
Alfond Scholars Program: http://www.rollins.edu/financial-aid/as-cps-financial-aid/scholarships/alfond-scholars-program.html
3.7 HS GPA and 34 ACT would get you a full ride at Troy, Tuskegee, and Prairie View A&M, and full tuition at some other places as well, according to http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20798968/#Comment_20798968
For competitive full tuition and full ride scholarships (i.e. not guaranteed by stats), you can also check http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/ .
In all cases, check college web sites to see if scholarships have changed.
Not merit, but University of Maine Orono has a flagship matching program. Go to their scholarships page to find out more. The chart lists a few states and then at the bottom “all other states.”
Greenmountain in VT is offering a full scholarship
Marlboro in VT also is offering a full scholarship (Renaissance)
Miami U of Ohio also offers some automatic funds to OOS students
Just over the border in Canada, Trent University is large LAC sized and has competitive costs–both lower costs and the difference in exchange rates makes it more affordable.
Quest in Canada is an interesting LAC and with the exchange rate there’s an automatic discount.
Im currently at SMU in dallas you would likely get at least 20 k in merit based on my friends with similar stats
I think you might like Marist. Close to NYC. Great school. Merit$$. A lot to offer here.
Thanks all!
Any public schools on common app that are very good (obviously all the UCs, Chapel Hill, etc - besides them) ?
You might get a decent aid package from Tulane. I think Fordham would probably offer you a fair amount of aid.
@kkpita1
What do you mean by “(very) good” colleges and “lots of” merit aid?
For example, are you looking for public schools among the USNews top 100 national universities that automatically award full tuition (or full ride) merit scholarships for qualifying stats to out of state applicants, with Fall 2017 application deadlines that have not passed yet? If so, then I think the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) is the only one. Their application deadline is Dec. 15.
Maybe another poster can point out others.
If not, you can find more information about merit awards on the pages @ucbalumnus cited above, on the Kiplinger “best value” college ranking pages, or in the Common Data Set files (section H) of any school that interest you. Or do a search for some of the many CC threads that already have covered this topic.
Daughter currently freshman at Marist. Received $25K per year Merit which I believe is the max. Plays a sport, loves the school, great campus, reasonably close to NYC, etc.
There are some schools that include a merit estimate in their Net Price Calculator (even for students with no financial need, i.e. “full pay”). Usually, in that case, one of the first few pages will ask about GPA and test scores before getting to the section on parent income. I do not know how accurate a merit estimate is from a NPC; I would assume they are not automatic.
Here are a few random schools that I noticed include this option in the NPC:
USC
Santa Clara
RPI
Tulane
Loyola Marymount
University of Denver
Chapman
Fairfield
Fordham
Emerson
TCU
Davidson, Kenyon, Oberlin and Richmond
Seton Hall. 30 minutes train to Manhattan. Big basketball school. You’d get lots of merit.