@newyorkmom2girl, you can glean some info on merit from the Common Data Set (Google for each school). There is info in the financial section on non-need based scholarships. They say how many students get them. Calculate what % of the student body get them. Say it is 10%. Then look at test scores and see if you think your kid falls in the top 10% for the school. If so, you could consider their chances to be decent to get at least the average dollar amount shown in the CDS. It is a crude method, but tells you something.
Then carefully read the school website in scholarships. And if there sre accepted student threads from the past couple of years out here on CC, read them and see what you can glean about the stats of those who got the awards.