I just wanted to address one part of your question. If you are eliminating schools that do not have application fees and do not have supplemental questions then you are eliminating a whole lot of really good options. I highly recommend that you reconsider this. You may be able to get a waiver to the application fees if you are low income. As for the supplemental questions, most high school students are extremely busy, they just have to squeeze it in. It’s too important not to. I certainly can sympathize that it’s a very high workload in senior year and an incredible amount of stress for students.
In the New England area, we found that Wheaton College gave excellent merit (40K) and also Roger Williams University.
Good luck!!