Take a look at York College of PA. It’s private, a nice campus, and about $30,000 all in. You should take the SAT and/or ACt because a lot of schools tie merit to those. At York you can get up to $10,000 a year off with high stats.
The larger, outside scholarship competitions are going to ask you for test scores. Plus you might end up needing good scores for merit aid.
Strongly suggest you find a tutor/program to help you focus on both subject matter and test taking tips.
My daughter was able to get full tuition scholarships at two small women’s colleges. Private Women’s colleges seem to offer more aid, both need based and merit, than co-ed schools and definitely more than public schools. They were medium ranked schools (much higher ranked than my and my husband’s schools though and we have done fine 
) , and your stats seem to be pretty similar to my daughter’s, which were above average, but not extraordinary. She had to go compete for the scholarships at their scholarship weekends. Definitely study hard for the SAT/ACT and take it multiple times to improve if you can afford it. Work hard on your essays and ask for feedback from your teachers. One of the colleges that offered her a scholarship had internship programs in DC. PM me if you would like more information.
<<<
After talking to my parents and and looking at the rough estimate from the Net Price calculator, my parents said they were willing to invest more in my education from the 5,000-10,000.
<<<]
Ok…test time…lol
Since you’re a junior, ask your parents if they can start putting $500-800 a month into a savings account. This will let them really see how much they can actually afford to put towards college on their income.
the reason I say this is so that the decisions made next near will be based on their actual knowledge of what they can actually contribute.
Believe me, things happen. Every couple of months, most households have some sort of a major unexpected expense…dental work, car repair, major appliance replacement, the list goes on and on. We’ve seen things like this totally mess up what some families think they can pay for college.
If next year, after doing this savings effort, your parents feel that they can do $10k per year, then super. However, this exercise may show them that they can only do $5k per year. Whatever the result is, it will help you know which school is really affordable.
We see many kids have to leave their school shortly after enrolling because paying was more difficult than the family first thought.
Just saying, 10k/year on an 80k income, and paying something for Sis, sounds steep.
^^
That’s why I suggested that the parents test their ability by starting now, saving each month, to see how much they really can afford to do.
Yes, agreeing.
I don’t think it’s necessarily true that they can’t come up with $5-10k/year unless they haven’t been able to save. We earn ~$60k/year and are paying $5k/year out of current income just for tuition for our son. We also have $4k/year set aside in savings for each of our children. But we knew going into application season how much we could pay and where it was coming from. If OP’s parents aren’t sure when they’ve already been through the process once, setting aside the money every month for the next year is a really smart idea. I think OP should plan for schools where the contribution can be $5k and consider the $10k schools as financial reaches.
Better yet, if they contribute to a PA 529 account, they can deduct up to $14,000 per parent from their PA taxable income.
http://www.pa529.com/faqs/benefits-and-features/income-tax-benefits/
If you can commute to Bloomsburg, or PSU Harrisburg, you would have tuition and fees of about $10,000 at BB and about $14,000 at PSU Harrisburg. You can take a $5,500 loan, you can work and earn $2,500 in the summer.
That’s $8,000.
Maybe your parents can help with the rest. How much does your sister’s school cost?
Can your parents qualify for the AOTC of up to $2,500 each for you and sister?
@RoseBellore If you’re a family of at least 4 and your parents’ Adjusted Gross Income on their taxes is $80,000 with no other considerable assets such as significant savings or properties, etc., then your family should qualify for a significant amount of need-based aid, especially if your sister will also be a full-time student for the 4 years you are attending school. Your challenge will be to carefully select schools that will meet a large portion of your family’s need. State schools traditionally offer little or no money toward need. They offer merit-based scholarships but only to outstanding applicants. Like others said, run the net price calculators, especially for the private schools, they should give you a rough idea about the amount of financial aid the school will provide for you and what your net cost should be. They won’t be hard and fast figures, but they should be in the ballpark of what your costs will end up to be.
And I would add @RoseBellore that, although I don’t have experience with GW and AU, I would recommend demonstrating interest. Make a couple of visits, go to Open Houses, especially those for the Poli Sci programs, try to arrange to meet with someone from the department or program to which you are applying and tailor your application to highlight your interest in that particular school and program and how you will contribute to their campus. These facets helped my DD get into her first choice, though her stats were similar to yours and on the low end of the school’s averages, and from running the NPC, we knew that the school would cover a large portion of our need. Good luck to you!