Switching high schools senior year??

<p>Hey guys. I'm new here but I was looking for some advice on college applications. I'm a junior right now in high school. I go to a private christian high school in the middle of the bible belt. Long story short, after freshman year, I underwent a fairly massive change in my political and theological views, and I've gone to private school my entire life. I am really tired of private school life as a whole, but the hardest part for me is going to a high school that is pretty much the complete opposite of my views, and dealing with everyone there every day. Its really getting stressful, annoying and old. Not to mention I have to drive 14 miles to school every morning, with about a 30 minute drive.
So recently I had been thinking of switching to a public high school my senior year. Its close, and is nationally recognized as a great public school. Everything seems like it would be great there, and my parents are pretty much willing to let me make my own decision. However, what we are most concerned about is how it would affect the college admissions process.
My current private high school does have honors and AP classes, and I've participated in extracurriculars. However they don't had class rank. The public school does do class rank. I have a pretty good GPA, however the freshman year at my private high school was really tough, and I only ended up with a 2.9 on a 4.0 scale. However, sophomore year I had a 3.7, and I expect my GPA to be pretty high this year. Possibly a 3.9. I have a 2010 on the SAT, and a 1310 on math and reading. My private school has a very rigorous program, and they always let colleges know that win students apply. I'm setting my sights pretty high on an out of state university, something like University of Michigan or Wisconsin or California Santa Barbara.
Recently my dad asked the head admissions director at SMU what she though (he knows a guy who works for SMU). She said that it would bring up a number of red flags, and that all colleges I applied to would've though I got kicked out of my private school. She said it would make things very hard to get into anywhere. She said I'd have to have a great excuse to leave without having it affect my applications process. But she didn't know anything about me, or my grades. My dad then asked an admissions staff at Vanderbilt what he thought. He said it could actually be viewed as positive, but making sure my GPA was good at a new high school senior year could be hard.
So basically, given my reason for leaving, my grades, and what you know about college applications, how would this affect my application? Would it look really bad? Could I still get into one of those out of state schools? How bad would it look? I really want to switch, and I would almost think that a college would view this as good to see a student change his situation because he cares about his views, but I'm not sure. </p>

<p>I know this is a long post, but thanks!!</p>

<p>Stay at the private school… red flags would definitely go up especially since a lot of Christian high schools have a “forgiveness policy”- where on your transcript it would not indicate the reason that you left the school (meaning you could have been kicked out, but it looks as if you chose to leave). Being a senior at a private school with a rigorous curriculum, I have slightly low grades but my 2020 SAT shows that I’m still a good student. You’ll only have to deal with the environment for one more year and it will significantly benefit you in the application process. Best of luck.</p>