i have run all of the COA on the schools on my list. the EFC varies from $17-35k/yr depending on the school.
those who offer merit based aid, such as bryn mawr, already provided a very low EFC compared to others on my list, so they are frankly the least of my concern.
but thank you for that, i will look into merit-based aid at schools a lot more!! the merit based aid is excluded from NPCs and so far my EFC at these schools has been quite low compared to columbia/barnard/etc.