Oh, and to get a snapshot of costs of attendance and merit availability, this is a handy list (derived from Common Data Set entries):
Ultimately you need to investigate each college of interest in detail, but at this exploratory stage I think it is fine to take a quick look.
To give some examples:
WashU is definitely a great option academically, but it is a hard admit to begin with, and then while it has a few good merit offers, it is VERY few and the competition is super intense. And it is expensive full cost. All of that is reflected in its entry on that list–COA of over $88K, and only 2% of undergrads without need get any merit (on the plus side, the average award was over $29K, so that is helpful for that 2%).
Of course this is not necessarily fatal for WashU, particularly IF you really get great grades over the next couple years AND you could get enough need aid to make your budget. But if you would really need big merit to make WashU affordable, well, it probably does not make sense to apply.
Case, in contrast, has a full COA of a little over $82K, then 41% of students without need got merit. Much, much more realistic. The average award for such students is over $26K, which again is not bad, particularly if you qualify for any need that stacks with merit. Really depends on your budget still, but maybe more realistic than WashU if these would not be affordable based on need aid alone.
Then Rhodes is $71.5K full pay, already significantly less, and 48% of students without need got merit, which is now really promising, and the average award was over $30K. So you can see why Rhodes can be an attractive proposition for a lot of kids, not least premeds.
Anyway, just wanted to point out this tool is available. Again, it is really just a starting point, but as such I think it is useful.