I think the thought process is way off. I’m seeing a list of prestigious schools taken from a U.S. News rankings list, and those are your “dream schools.” I’m also hearing “Parents are OK paying EVERYTHING.” I’m just not buying it. I haven’t heard anything about your career goals and interests. I’m seeing what I call “prestige dreaming.” That’s the fastest way to find a complete mismatch and 4 years of complete misery. Right now, even if you get accepted, there’s a good possibility the financial aid package is going to be lower than expected, and you end up spending a year at community college.
First, what mom and dad says now versus when you get the actual results from the financial aid package will be much different, I GUARANTEE! Unless your parents have a $300k wad of cash lying around for an all expense paid trip to college, they’re going to have to take out significant debt to send you to these places. That’s why you have to treat cost as a precondition. Run the net-price calculator for these schools, then add 20% to the expected family contribution, then bring the numbers to your parents, THEN see what they say about paying for EVERYTHING.
Second, take some time to explore your interests and career goals. High ranked prestigious schools are quite often poor choices for many career paths. For example, University of Chicago is a highly ranked school, but their engineering program is not ABET accredited, which is needed to get an engineering job for most any company.