What is it about the “focus” of LACs you don’t like? Quite a few of them offer the major. You are likely to have smaller classes (mostly taught by profs, not TAs) and less competition with grad students for research opportunities. Major universities and LACs pretty much all have some set of requirements across areas for graduation, so not sure what difference you would see there. So “focus” seems like an odd reason to avoid them. If you’ve never visited one, you might check one out.
Some LACs with the major that offer merit include Grinnell, Colorado College, Oberlin, and Kenyon.
Universities that offer merit that have the major you might consider include Case Western, University of Tulsa, or Tulane.
The Forbes article previously mentioned basically says $262,000 a year with no siblings in college gets you nothing (if I recall correctly). You can find your family income on there, account for siblings currently enrolled in college, and see what you might get.
That income (which is probably in the top 2-3% of household incomes in the US) indicates that you should not expect any need-based financial aid (even at the most generous colleges; you can try net price calculators to see), so you are looking for list price or net price after merit scholarships within your price limit.
Large merit scholarships are most likely found at colleges which are likely or safety for admission (but the scholarships may still be reaches, and not all colleges which are likely or safety for admission have many or any large merit scholarships).
See what sort of aid you can get at places like U Rochester or Case Western - even Pitt. They are all very good schools and are likely to offer enough merit aid for your stats and ECs to get down to or below the 45K you said your folks can afford.
I’m sure there are others. Those are just three that come to mind as I often recommend them due to the positive feedback I get from students.
The OP may consider himself upper middle class, but he falls into the doughnut hole. He’s not fabulously wealthy where cost is no object, but too wealthy to get any financial aid. With OP’s stats he should apply to some auto merit schools such as the University of Alabama, his state flagships which in California are excellent schools, and go for the large merit awards at the schools that he likes that offer them.
Ditto the comments in #22.
I think you’re likely to find the best balance of quality, fit, and affordability within the University of California system. At almost all OOS public universities, or at private research universities where you’d have a good shot at a ~$25K merit discount, you’d get fewer very distinguished professors than you’d find at Berkeley or UCLA. At almost all the OOS public universities, you’d get classes that are equally big or bigger, as well as classmates with weaker entering stats on average. Many of those schools (public or private) would not have equally good research facilities (libraries, labs, funded projects). Yet you’d probably still be paying significantly more than you would at an in-state public university.
If you’re determined to find alternatives to the UCs, you might want to check out UChicago, Rice, and Vanderbilt. They all offer merit scholarships, excellent academics, and smaller classes (on average) than what you’d get at Berkeley/UCLA. However, competition for scholarships at these schools would be intense; a relatively good outcome might be a $10K-$25K merit discount. If you want to take a long shot at a bigger award than that, then check out the Robertson scholarship at Duke. Forget the 8 Ivies (very little or no merit money).
The UCs. As others have said it is hard to pass up UCB/UCLA in biochem. That is without even considering the price differential.
Add Wisconsin as a high safety. Top 10 biochem program (at grad level). Little over your price point $52k. You will not get any merit. If you get shutout of UCB/UCLA it could come into play. But you still have UCSD/UCD.
Chase after a few big merit. Vandy, WashU, CWRU, etc. find a couple and try. Wouldn't pick them over #1 for the same price or more. But if you get one of the really big merit scholarships I wouldn't fault you for taking it.
The uber elites. With the chance of acceptance + the cost, I don't even know if I would try. I have been thinking through this with my DS. We are right at the boarder of full pay (token amount of FA at P only). If you are thinking grad school, all of the schools in 1-3 above will give you the same opportunities with cash in your pocket. And I would restrict this set to maybe 4 schools at most.
One thing worth nothing about Rice is that its “sticker price” is $10-15K less than most other elite U’s even if you don’t get merit. Its full-pay COA just topped $60K this year, whereas virtually all of the other private elite U’s are well over $70K. So consider that built-in differential as you compare merit possibilities. There are a lot of full-pay CA kids at Rice whose families decided that the small, undergrad-focused university experience, with its exceptionally well-engineered and inclusive Residential College system, is worth the additional $$ over their UC options. However, the difference in price keeps getting bigger.
Within the UC system, if I felt certain that I wanted a biochem major, my first choice might well be the College for Creative Studies at UCSB. https://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/majors/chemistry-biochemistry CCS imparts a lot of the advantages of a small school, within a large UC - it’s worth a look as a possible best-of-both-worlds alternative to UCB/UCLA. I’ve also seen quite a few top students choose Davis over UCB/UCLA for the quality of the undergraduate experience there.
As has been said a number of times up-thread, Rochester and CWRU are worthy of serious consideration; the quality of undergrad education, research opportunities, peer group, and overall experience compares favorably with the Rice-Vandy-WashU tier in which merit aid is more scarce. (And @Eeyore123 , I was not suggesting that a big discount on the COA at any of those schools was a likely outcome; OP merely asked what was possible, and there are some larger merit awards at all of these schools. Also at Duke, apparently, so apologies again for missing that.)
You’ll have great options; it’s just a matter of how the cost-benefit analysis shakes down once you have acceptances in hand and can compare post-merit bottom lines.
Private universities that offer merit to more students than just the handful at Vandy etc, have BioChem and are quite competitive include Tulane, Boston U, Northeastern, Emory & Case Western.