You have received some good input above. It might already be obvious, but here is some more general guidelines. The very “top” 10 or so colleges simply do not offer merit aid, period. You can look at a college’s Common Dataset to find out how much financial aid they give to the incoming freshman class but the Net Price Calculator is a better tool given each individuals financial situation. What you will find is that out-of-state public universities will not be very generous with financial aid but private, highly selective colleges with large endowments will be very generous with financial aid. Given your family situation, you almost need to look at each potential college’s financial aid process/forms to know whether your father’s income will be factored in. As far as merit aid goes if you achieve the ACT you are targeting and if your grades stay on-track as you ramp up the difficulty, you will be positioned very well for merit aid. There are a very limited number of full ride (or at least full tuition) scholarships at places like Alabama or UVA. The amount of merit aid given by colleges varies widely based on whether the college is trying to move up the rankings or attract out-of-state students. The Common Dataset is probably the easiest place to see how much merit (or non-need based) aid is awarded. If you plan to compete for full-ride scholarships obviously you need to apply to colleges that offer them and you will probably need to apply when early decision / early action deadlines usually in November. My personal opinion is that when competing for full-ride scholarships it helps if the college actually gets the message that you want to attend by demonstrating interest and interacting with your admissions rep. I say this because my D was very strong academically but she was somewhat passive about applying to the schools with these scholarships and she did not receive any or even get past the first round of consideration.
You might want to consider “Questbridge” as you get closer to applying. Good luck!