Changing direction somewhat, my daughter’s small independent school offers a mandatory college admissions seminar that meets once a week beginning in January of the junior year. Parents and student are also required to fill out a detailed questionnaire, and those surveys include financial constraints and instructions to go to the CB financial aid calculator as a starting point. So far, the counselors have gone over a number of useful topics - including the distinction between merit aid and need-based aid, what is the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, etc. They also sent home a very illuminating handout that documented all of the MERIT based awards received by their graduates since 2010. The data was anonymous but for each award, the school indicated the unweighted GPA of the student and the SAT (M+CR) or ACT or both.
What I found encouraging was that there were a lot of B/B+ students with unimpressive standardized test scores that nonetheless got into regional LACs and universities with significant merit aid. There were also top performers who got awards at more competitive schools. It doesn’t seem that they are chasing prestige primarily, although I know anecdotally that a few students have gone on to attend Brown, Cornell, Princeton (no merit obviously). The majority, however ended up at the state flagship or CTCL schools (or equivalent) with merit.
After reading some of the commentary here, I am now even more appreciative that the school is devoting resources to in-depth counseling and setting realistic goals for the students, rather than pushing high-profile places solely to enhance the school’s status.