I’m just gonna send you to the PHA website, but EVERYONE applying should do the PHA events and get a composite letter done. Emory does not restrict access to the process based on performance:
http://prehealth.emory.edu/apply/composite-letter.html
I’m not going to advise on specific schools extensively. I would just say that Vanderbilt is a very different social and STEM academic environment from Emory/WUSTL or really any Division 3 selective school (they all tend to emphasize academics a bit more in social life and seem to invest more heavily in STEM curricula), but will train you well enough for a pre-health path. Whether you choose a “state school” depends on your values.
Note that selective and elite schools with SAT means above 1300 for matriculates can be as challenging as or more than elite privates in STEM. When people refer to “state schools” being easier, it is the much less selective state schools where students aren’t on average “high achieving” according to incoming stats. I have come to believe that barring pre-dominantly STEM institutes,that beyond 1300-1350 medians, you really can’t predict the style and level of rigor of life sciences/pre-med curricula. It is largely dependent upon what schools did in the past before they became as selective as they are today. Generally schools aren’t endorsing a greater abundance or different style of rigor as they become more selective. Schools that change their curricula or add analytical rigor to STEM do so because they have historically kept up with trends of their peers and/or literature in STEM education, and NOT because they felt that “we need to challenge our students more as they get better”, which means that most selective schools student bodies are changing far faster than the style of academics and usually the latter does not keep up.
Either way, if you just want to risk being pre-med and not entertain anything else/value just getting a high GPA, then a much less selective state school may be the place because your competition will be less capable. However, even then, you’ll want to go somewhere that puts some effort into its life sciences curriculum (many less selective schools do so, perhaps more than very selective privates and publics), so that you don’t have an GPA/MCAT mismatch. You go to certain privates if you think you’ll benefit from networking or learning with stronger peers or straight, are open to other pathways, want additional resources more plentiful at wealthy school, want a greater chance of feeling academically challenged, want smaller classes, etc. If your goal is to simply be fast-tracked to medical school and you have very little values beyond that or are not concerned about the “journey”, then I don’t see why go to an elite/selective private or public. It cost a lot of money that isn’t worth spending if you don’t want to fully engage what it has to offer. In such a case, it won’t hurt to take a scholarship from a much less selective state school or maybe do honors at your state’s flagship if you can. There isn’t much of a premium on attending an elite university for med. school admissions unless you want to feed into its medical school (Some elite med. schools self-feed. As in, you are much more likely to get into its med. school than a top ranked med. school outside. It’s a win-win. If they struggle to place at some other places and their med. school is ranked well, they still get to market: "We place lots of our high performers into highly ranked medical schools). The med. schools just want the stats, ECs, and personal development.
You need to figure out your own values and go visit places to determine what environments you think you’d like.