Is there a way for me to calculate how much money I could possibly get in merit scholarships for different schools?
How will I know if I will be able to afford a school before I apply?
Some colleges include merit awards on their net orice calculators. They NPC would need to ask for your GPA, and ACT or SAT score. And maybe your class rank. When the results spit out, they would indicate merit awards.
Will you qualify for any need based aid?
For merit aid you usually need to be in the top 25% of admitted students
If you absolutely require merit aid, apply to a boatload of colleges for which your stats put you comfortably in the top 25% of applicants.
Make sure to vet your choices in advance by visiting their websites and determining (1) if they offer merit aid at all, (2) if the merit aid they offer is sizable enough for you, and (3) what is the criteria for getting that aid.
Then, check the common data sets for your choices to see if you would be considered a top 25% applicant.
To answer your question, no, there is no foolproof way to know in advance if you will - for sure - be awarded a merit scholarship even if you do all of these things. Therefore, apply to many such colleges.
The only fool proof way is to apply to colleges with guaranteed merit aid based on your stats.
Yes, as @thumper1 suggests, there are some colleges that publish their criteria for guaranteed merit aid. There’s a thread on here somewhere that lists those colleges.
On the Common Data Set section H2A, the schools list the average amount of non-need-based scholarships. While this may not tell you the exact amount you’d get, you could at least get a sense of whether it’s tends to be substantial or just a token amount.
Google:
Common Data Set <>