Have you had the awkward money talk yet with your parents to find out how much they can afford to contribute? Are you hoping to earn a full ride somewhere?
Have you run the FAFSA yet to see what your federal EFC (estimated family contribution aka every freaking cent)? That number is good for finding out if you are eligible for Pell grants.
Congratulations you have qualified for full tuition at University of Alabama (if they superstore)
http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php
Alabama has been recruiting high stats kids for a number of years now. I think about half of the students are from out of state. The honors college students are all really smart. room and board is about $13,000.
Likewise you have full tuition (again if they superscore) at the Huntsville campus http://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate My impression is that it is techy. Room and board there is more or less $10,000.
I think you could also get a good scholarship at Creighton but they don’t seen to publish the criteria. That is a good place for premed or health careers.
Being a first gen is a huge hook these days, and possibly where you live, geo diversity. Your success in athletics from a young age is also good. But don’t think in terms of ivies or tiers, there is very little if any correlation between undergrad school and future success. Try and enjoy your high school years, work with your GC on a general list for your major and type of college and narrow it down from there.
You are getting lots of great advice here. I will just mention that figuring out your own interests as far as possible majors should be one of the most important factors, more so that perceived prestige or status. Being in a rural location, you can still tap into great resources online like Coursera, MIT courses, EdX, to look into introductory engineering courses, computer science, energy policy, neuroscience, and so on. If you find an area you like, you can take series of courses to show your interests to colleges (maybe not for credit, but they can be listed on college applications). Some areas (comp sci, math, robotics) have contests that you can participate in independently and remotely if you don’t have school resources.
@belmom He mentions PLTW which stands for Project Lead The Way which is an engineering/tech program
https://www.pltw.org/
Here’s a concise chart that shows what range of merit aid you could anticipate at Miami of Ohio, a very good school with a beautiful campus, and fairly large too. Note that Miami super-scores for admissions and merit aid:
@TTG Nice! Looks like room and board starts at just under $13,000.