American University takes demonstrated interest seriously into consideration. Many top students apply thinking they may be a candidate for merit scholarships and end up waitlisted/rejected. So if you are serious about American, you need to get to their campus and show them some love.
Have you looked at the University of Mississippi’s Croft Institute? With your stats you would qualify for full tuition and would probably be competitive for some of their additional scholarships. You could be looking at less than $10,000/year total cost, which would allow you to save for grad school. U of South Carolina would be another one to look into.
I would also suggest looking into some small LACs that offer good merit. Swarthmore and Denison come to mind, but I know there’s probably a long list of schools I’m just not aware of.
I don’t know what your parents income is, but run the NPC for all the Ivy League schools. When I did it for my DD, I was surprised at what a HUGE range we got. Harvard came out totally affordable, but my DD had no interest in going there and I couldn’t even get her to apply there or Yale, which was another affordable Ivy. She instead chose to apply to an unaffordable Ivy and her acceptance came with an EFC within $2000 of the NPC, which was unaffordable.
It sounds like you are trying to “stack” scholarships, which means you’re hoping to add merit aid to financial aid. Unfortunately, most schools don’t allow this - even if you get merit scholarships from outside sources. It sucks, but it’s a game they all play and you can’t get around the rules. There are some exceptions. My DD won a moderate award from an outside source and her university is allowing her to apply it to summer tuition, which isn’t covered at all by the award from her school. But if she chooses not to take a class this summer, she loses it.