Congratulations on your hard work and success! US admissions can be difficult for international students who require financial aid. You appear well qualified for many US colleges, and there are many, many schools where a student can get a world-class college education . . . can go on to dental school and other graduate schools.
I suggest you google “US colleges that meet full financial need” and “US colleges that give good merit aid.” The first at least strive to cover all costs that a student cannot meet. It’s not a guarantee. For example, they might calculate your family can pay $35k. But it’s a good group to be looking at. Of course, these lists will include the wealthiest, most competitive schools (Harvard, Stanford) but also others that are very good schools and competitive in admissions, but much more reasonable with your scores and grades. Note, too, that they might be “need aware” and give preference to qualified students who will pay full costs.
Some examples: Grinnell College; Franklin and Marshall; College of the Holy Cross; Macalester College; Lafayette College; Trinity College (Connecticut); Union College. These are all very good schools. Grinnell is in a rural small town in Iowa. Holy Cross, Trinity, and especially Macalester are urban schools. Macalester is probably the most internationally focused school on this list. Franklin and Marshall, Lafayette, and Union are in towns/large towns. All have nice campuses. They all will have cold/very cold weather in the winter.
University of Alabama at Huntsville is a good suggestion. It gives good merit aid. It’s southern and would be much, much warmer. Huntsville is the home of a NASA facility so it has a high-tech community. I like to put up this table for Miami of Ohio (not Miami in Florida). It show very quickly the range of merit aid you might receive there. Note that they super-score for admissions AND financial aid. (Super-score: use your highest scores on the different components of a test to calculate a new composite score. So if you had a high English ACT score one time and a high math score the next, they would use the highest for each to recalculate. Same with SAT.)
http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/
And, yes, LACs are just as good for dental/grad school. It really depends on the student and the school. For example, Amherst, a great LAC, has a better reputation than many research universities. Universities of California, Michigan, UVA, Texas, etc. are major research universities and considered some of the best schools in the country. LACs typically offer smaller class sizes and closer interaction with professors. They are smaller communities (usually 2000-4000 students). Research universities typically have much bigger classes but also bigger, more active research labs, which provide opportunities, and can have 15,000-50,000 students). It can just be a matter of the type of place a student wants to be.
For dental, medical, and grad school the school one attends is a factor, but your college grades and test scores are overwhelmingly the most important factor. Students do get into these from many, many schools. Good luck!