I see, you are on a gap year. Then even more reason to set up goals with tangible results to show for your efforts. Good luck!
What US state were you living in when you became a citizen? You should read carefully the state’s in-state residency requirements. Some states like California are quite strict.
Reason why this is important is that med schools play heavy favorites to ‘in-state’ students. You may consider going to a college in a state where its easier to establish residency before applying to medical school.
Otherwise you will be limited to applying to the private US medical schools, which are a lot more expensive (and competitive).
Case Western is the exception to that rule, good rank, fantastic merit awards, and meets full need. Cleveland Clinic is one mile away and there are two medical schools right at Case Western, the Case Medical school and the prestigious Cleveland Clinic Medical school. There are three hospitals to volunteer at too, VA, University Hospital and Cleveland Clinic.
The new Health Sciences joint campus with Cleveland Clinic just opened. You can volunteer in the free dental clinic here too.
http://hec.case.edu
CWRU is good for premeds as they take special care to get your recommendations and help you study for the MCAT. Its small and very individualized education. You can major in macromolecular engineering and do research in drug delivery. You can major in a science, and work in a hospital. You can switch to a nursing major, if you want to and get a ton of clinical practice as part of a 4 year degree.
Consider Case Western.
Case Western offers ten high school students direct admission to their dentist program and also some directly into MD program, very competitive but you might want to consider it .
https://case.edu/medicine/admissions-programs/md-programs/pre-professional-scholars-programs
Also, if you get admitted to an MD program in your third year at Case Western, they will give you a bachelors degree and let you go to medical school a year early.
Agree with @coloradomama. Case is a great choice for pre-med.
Case is definitely generous with merit aid. An Eagle Scout I worked with is a freshman Biology major/premed and is getting 20,000 a year in merit aid even though his family could afford the school full pay.
It would have been an alternative for my WashU kid had his local interviewer not been a jerk and ignored him when he requested times for interviews. But I would still recommend the school for any potential premeds as the school seems to more nurturing/less grade deflationary than JHU/WashU.
@sgopal2 – the OP wrote “I have US citizenship” --she did NOT say that she is a naturalized citizen. I assumed from her post that she has birthright citizenship, either because she was born in the US before her parents relocated to Singapore, or because she is the offspring of a US citizen. For college tuition purposes, in either of those situations, she would have been a citizen at birth, but would not have in-state residency no matter where she was born or where her US citizen parent resided prior to emigrating to Singapore.
You fit into a stereotype. Asian, female, top academics, no sports, pre-Med track, ho hum pre-Med centered ECs, needing financial aid.
I wouldn’t waste too much time on Ivies. You need to pick top schools where being Asian isn’t a drawback, aid is generous and merit scholarships are offered.
I would recommend focusing on places like JHU, Rice, Amherst, Vanderbilt. For affordable safeties (good merit money) with strong pre-Med tracks, add Baylor, TCU and Northeastern.
Texas isn’t a common destination for top international Asian students so you have better odds of getting into decent private colleges with a good financial package. Texas has most affordable medical schools for local residents. You’ll become a resident by the time you’ll apply to Med schools as you are a citizen.
Texas is actually a good suggestion for premed and with the large number of quality med schools at a reasonable cost for instate residents, it should be a goal. Although I have to say that Asian students are pretty ubiquitous these days, even in the South.
Speaking of the South, Tulane and the University of Miami should also be looked at. Both have medical schools and are not commonly looked at by Asians. Tulane might give merit aid as well. And the climate, at least in Florida is somewhat similar to Singapore.
ITs very hard for Asian Americans to get into Berkeley as they are overrepresented as well. Princeton and Harvard are minutely small chance for anyone. Penn has the great medical school on their campus. Cornell’s is fabulous but 4 hours south of their undergrad campus. It is a good idea to target a place with lots of medical schools, so Florida or Texas both might fit that bill. U of Miami is a private school that has pretty strong premedical. Vanderbilt still has a shortage of Asian Americans, and aid is top at Vanderbilt, and look at Cornelius awards, they give about 300 or more merit based full tuition scholarships at Vanderbilt. Many many students turn down Vanderbilt, and thus those full tuition awards, are passed on to others. Nashville is arguably one of the nicer cities in middle America, warmer than say Cleveland, greener, and Vanderbilt more Ivy Like than Case Western, which caters to middle class Americans who cannot afford Ivy.
Ivy Schools today are open only to very very wealthy Americans and then about 1/3 are lower middle class on full rides, or have huge mortgages in CA and no savings, on partial rides. They round out the class with international Americans such as yourself, but its a low probability for anyone.
Vanderbilt is a good choice for premed, although I don’t Nashville qualifies as ‘middle America’ in terms of geography though!
If Boston is to your liking, Tufts, Brandeis, Northeastern, and BU could be added to your list. Tufts has a program where undergrads who have a minimum 3.5 GPA after their sophomore year are assured of a place in their medical school. Brandeis is strong in the Biological Sciences and there is the possibility of some merit aid at Northeastern. There are also opportunities for research.
I added BU to the list since it is associated with a highly rated medical school. The problem is that they aren’t the greatest with financial aid.
@Riversider Being Asian is a drawback for Ivies? 
“Being Asian is a drawback for Ivies?”
Yes. There is a lawsuit going on right now over this very issue. If you Google “Harvard lawsuit” you can read about it.
Just wanted to mention that my experience at JHU (admittedly a while ago) was that Hopkins premeds had no special advantage with respect to admission to the Med School. Of course, if you get through the rigors of Hopkins premed, you’ll be in good shape. JHU weeds out premeds it doesn’t think will cut the mustard so the kids that make it through are pretty special. JHU is not for the faint of heart.
Rochester is a great school, somewhat under the radar – they offered me a merit scholarship but Hopkins offered a slightly bigger one (they were definitely looking for non-premeds from outside the Mid-Atlantic) and it’s a better school (how much better of course is open to debate).
Among the other schools mentioned on here I think Rice is a tremendously underrated school and if I were looking at schools today it would be on my list. Same for WashU. My nephew is a senior at Vandy and LOVES it. Good luck!
Case Western, hands down. And then as backup Texas schools - Austin has a new medical school and San Antonio accepts more than half of international applicants. Vanderbilt is rigorous for premed (most neuroscience majors here are premed), but don’t prepare students for the chance they do not get accepted into medical school. Texas is young and educated and has a tech/start-up scene (think Dell). Vanderbilt is not ivy, it is sports-centered school, and ivies are not that; nor are there any tech around here.
In addition to these thoughtful and valuable advice offered to you here at CC, I suggest that you also contact the alumni association of the schools of your interest in Singapore. There are at least l0 students in the class of 2023 at Princeton who hail from Singapore, for example; you might be able to get input from these students or their parents as well. Your stats and ECs are strong, and these are mostly already set in place in your applications, so work on the remainder of the applications, the all important essays and short answers.
@tgl2023 Ah, thank you so much for the advice! I’ll try to reach out to the alumni associations sometime soon!! 