@hellohello24601 my D who will be a freshman nursing student at SDSU this fall had many similarities as you. CA resident with higher end GPA and test scores but no hospital volunteering experience. Pretty strong ECs and essays otherwise however. Decided late to pursue nursing and she applied to SDSU right before the deadline.
You can read more about the schools she applied to along with all the merit she received at each one in the thread “class of 2022 nursing admissions”.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/nursing-major/2039571-class-of-2022-nursing-admissions-p10.html
Within CA there are more than 4 direct entry schools but only 4 that are public. All have tiny acceptance rates. At orientation she was told SDSU’s nursing program had 3% acceptance this year.
As far as low cost nursing programs - with your credentials you could probably get a full ride offer from Univ of Alabama which is direct entry at Tuscaloosa campus. We didn’t apply there but applied to many schools throughout country to see what we could get. Because we are in local service area for SDSU she received full tuition there. All told she received about $900k for all 4 years across all the schools that offered her merit. We never considered not having hospital volunteering experience a detriment at least at those schools.
Good luck!