As to whom to send it to... the financial aid office in 90% of cases. The office normally assigns student cases to specific officers. That's who will normally appear at the bottom on any correspondence. Send it to them. If you cannot identify who the FAO is, then send it to the director. Always send it to a specific name or it runs a much higher risk of being round filed.
Timing... the later in the year it gets, the more critical timing becomes. It's probably ok to send it by mail (you might want to send it 2nd day or priority for tracking purposes) at this time. 3 to 4 weeks from now, faxing would be recommended for most cases.
The official financial award letter is preferable to any preliminary award letters. But for those families who did not go throught the complete financial aid process (GASP! Shame on you!), a preliminary scholarship award letter may be all you have.
Whether it is need-based or merit-based, the same factors come into play. In a nutshell, how attractive are you to the school. If your student is in the top 25% of the incoming freshman class, you've got leverage. If the student in the bottome 25%, you don't have leverage and should not expect much.
There are so many factors that go into this. I just put up a new audio workshop on one of my websites,
www.cfstrategies.com . If you have 60 minutes, it may be worth your while.
And no body complain about me soliciting. This is the first time in over 300 posts I've mentioned my websites. But I think the audio workshop is pretty darn helpful.