Hi,
I am a high schooler junior from Vermont and I am currently looking at which schools I should apply to. I have to figure out whether to chose a school I love over a school that is affordable. Because I live in VT I could go to UVM for a very reasonable amount. However, UVM doesn’t really fit what I want in a school. It’s bigger than I would like, it is a party school, and I would consider it a safety. It does have a decent premed path (which I am looking for) and if I do decide to go to med school it would be better to have no debt in undergrad, but I just don’t really like it. I haven’t quite found a dream school yet but all of the other schools I am looking at are around 15k more expensive a year.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated 
Ps. If anyone knows any small New England schools that are not in big cities with good premed I should look at let me know! (4.2 unweighted GPA, 1290 PSAT, 30 PACT)
I would encourage you to really study and prepare for your standardized tests. If you can get those scores up, you’ll open more possibilities for merit money.
UVM is a great option to have as your instate school. You are absolutely correct that minimizing debt should be your goal. Find things to love about UVM. Apply to the honors college. Big schools have lots of wonderful opportunities for their students and honors college will make it feel more intimate.
Have you talked to your parents about a budget? Run NPCs for other schools?
I agree with @momofsenior1. UVM is a very good university with a very good premed program. The honors program dorm at UVM is one of the nicest dorms that I have seen anywhere. Given that you are in-state it would be a relative bargain, and you will want to save your college $$ for medical school.
You will find premed classes at UVM to be very demanding. There will be a lot of strong students in your classes.
The majority of students who start off at university as premed end up doing something else. There are a LOT of options that you probably can’t know about yet as a high school student. UVM is large enough to have a wide range of other potential majors if medical school does not end up in your future.
Avoiding debt is huge, particularly when your in-state option is this strong.
Does a 4.2 unweighted GPA mean that you mostly have A+ grades?
“small New England schools that are not in big cities with good premed”
Dartmouth College is an obvious one, but would be a reach for everyone even with your great GPA. Also, you would want to run the NPC and see whether it would be affordable for you. I would be very reluctant to run up any debt to go there instead of UVM without debt.
We also live in New England, and one daughter wanted to attend a relatively small school (what we would call a liberal arts college in the US). We had trouble finding anything in New England that would be even close to as affordable as our in-state public flagship. This will depend however on whether you qualify for need based aid.