Oh, and one more thing. You need to start searching schools’ websites and seeing what sorts of merit awards that they offer. Someone mentioned Case Western, which would certainly be a good choice given your STEM-based interests, but you need to find out what sorts of scholarships are available. Many merit awards will be based on academic achievement (you seem pretty solid here), but there are some that are based on geography, background, and other non-academic qualities (though these are rarer, and the awards typically smaller, more supplemental). In other words, you need to literally find those schools that offer merit aid in the amounts you need to lower the school’s sticker price to 35K. I’m just not sure if A) Case offers these amounts of merit aid to full-pay or close-to-full-pay families, and, B) do you consider Case Western (or the other fine schools that have been mentioned) as being below your Princeton/MIT desire? Truly, there aren’t that many schools on that level, perceived or actual. There are the other Ivies, plus near-Ivies like Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. There are the elite LACs like Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. There are the STEM standouts like CalTech and Harvey Mudd. I worry that you’ll find that they all either don’t offer merit aid or won’t offer merit aid in the amounts needed to bring the sticker price down to 35K for a full pay family.
Finally, have you truly run your parents’ finances through online tools like net price calculators? Or have your parents done this (students often do not know the full details of their parents earnings, savings, investments, home equity)? I ask because sometimes students and their parents assume that they will not qualify for any need-based aid. They might not qualify for much, but even comfortable families sometimes qualify for some aid. Still, if your parents’ cap is 35K per year, that requires more than qualifying for “some aid.” For instance, Princeton, with a total cost of attendance of 67K, would require your family to have a demonstrated need of 32K).