Depends on the school – you can ask Admissions about merit award practices and ED apps, noting that as a full pay family, merit would be a factor in applications. Our experience was with Denison where my ED athletic recruit was given an estimate of his merit award as a full pay applicant before he applied ED, and Admissions specifically said that merit would not change between ED and RD. He in fact got more than the estimate with his ED acceptance, which I credit to the coherence of his essay, LORs etc.
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