@malaalenase , the UC’s will give you full financial aid by their definition. It just isn’t as generous as what you’d get at the private colleges that meet full need, especially the ones that offer no-loan packages.
If you look at the chart here http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/paying-for-uc/how-aid-works/estimate-your-aid/index.html you’ll see that the 10K-ish “student contribution” doesn’t really go away in any scenario. Indeed, you will pay zero dollars for tuition; but UC’s won’t help as much with your room/board/expenses as the generous privates will.
People make this work, of course, but you sound like you’re not even that enamored of the UC schools, so it doesn’t sound like you’d be tempted to stretch financially for a UC if you had a more generous financial aid offers from private colleges; and if you choose your colleges well, that is more than likely to happen. So… make a particular effort to give the match and safety schools that have been suggested here a fair chance before you decide against them.
TTG is right that you should add Holy Cross - I missed that one. (And women’s college wise, maybe Wellesley too, and for that matter Barnard, but both of those would add to your “reach” list rather than strengthening your list of matches.)
For a true in-state financial safety, apply to the Honors College at CSULA and/or the University Honors Program at CSULB. You should get true full-ride aid there.
Before you rule anything out, run all of the Net Price Calculators for all of the schools we’ve suggested and the schools on your original list. Every school’s formula is different, and there may be some that aren’t as generous as you expect. There’s no point wasting your time on applications for schools that will surprise you with stingy aid offers, when the relative generosity or stinginess can be assessed up-front. (Here’s Lehigh’s calculator, just as a place to start, as I’m suspicious this could be one of the less generous ones. https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/lehigh ) Make a Google Sheet and put the numbers you get for all of the schools into it. Then see where you are.