Baylor has a separate scholarship calculator as well (don’t need to enter financial data). But basically, if the NPC asks for academic stats, it should spit out what the estimated “automatic” merit component of a future aid package would be for a student with that profile. And really, you may as well know now what the need-based portion (if any) would be as well. Best to have full data.
When I ran the NPC in the fall 2016 application season for the private college my son ultimately ended up at, it estimated a merit-based scholarship of $14K. His actual package for fall 2017 had a merit scholarship of $20K. Interestingly, his actual stats ended up slightly lower than the projected stats I had put in the NPC (his fall ACT/SAT results were not in yet; he ended up not improving his scores as I had projected), but presumably he stayed in the same tier as far as the college was concerned, and then their scholarship budget went up year-over-year (of course the tuition and all other elements of the COA went up too). Another quirk is that when this estimate was spit out in 2016, it said “2015” on it so the college may have been even an additional year behind in plugging in updated data. Anyway I am just one data point but in my case the NPC was basically accurate (and actually an underestimate) for both the “automatic” merit portion and the need-based portion.
When you talk about the merit-based “process,” it sounds like you also might be referring to the interviews, scholarship weekends, etc., that some schools (e.g. Miami Fla.) make applicants go through for “nonautomatic”/competitive merit scholarships? No direct experience with this so I will let others chime in. I do know from friends’ experiences that there can be multiple interviews and group sessions where everything is observed and is fair game for evaluation. Sounds a bit like The Bachelor to me but it is what it is. At least everybody is in the same boat.
As for your last question, first, always compare apples to apples based on net cost after scholarships and grants. In the end, a scholarship/grant is just an intermediate variable - a discount off a sticker price. Compare the bottom lines. And then the question really becomes, can you justify paying (or asking your parents to pay) $X more for school A over school B.
When I was a kid, I personally was lucky in that I got rejected by my “dream” (and very expensive) school, and that my legit #2 choice was fully half the cost of the other schools I got admitted to. So, a no-brainer and a win-win for me and my parents. But had I gotten into my dream school, I admit it would have been very hard at 17 to let go of that but I also know now, looking back, that it would not have been worth double the cost to my parents. The two schools were similar in most respects, it’s just that the dream school was 10 spots higher in USNWR and was in a nicer locale, which of course were huge to my 17-year-old self. But I can absolutely say now, 30 years later, that my life would not be substantively different had I gone to the dream school.
I know I am a parent talking here but I do think in most cases it will end up “feeling better” to choose the least-costly-to-your-parent(s) option that you can still be happy with. There is a lot of peace of mind in choosing to do something that your parent(s) will really appreciate even if it requires some sacrifice on your part, like passing on a dream school/reach admit that is significantly more expensive than other options that you still like. Not saying to slavishly exalt cost over all other variables and go to a school you just don’t feel would be a fit. Again speaking as a parent, I would never want my kid to be miserable just to save me some money, even a lot of money. But I do want them to see their decision as an important one that impacts and involves all of us as a family.