To address some other aspects of your question, trying to predict merit awards is far from an exact science. You’re right to try to weigh the odds but you can also consider letting her apply someplace that particularly attracts her or you (!), with full advance acknowledgement that she can only attend if net cost is $______ or less.
I think this next part is apples and oranges since my D is more liberal arts/LAC while your D seems more STEM/university, but just to give you an idea of possibilities:
I really didn’t expect merit $$ for my D. Her GPA is lower than your D’s. Her SAT scores were about a flipflop CR/math-wise from your D’s. She has just average EC’s without leadership positions, no sports other than one minor recreational one. I could go on about essay, recs, etc., but mostly I just want to convey that she’s a great kid and a good student but definitely not a superachiever.
She does have some traits that might be considered hooks, a very slippery quality to try to quantify. Two of those traits are being first generation and being from an underrepresented state for most colleges. Who can say what effect those traits have both in admissions and scholarship awards? I know you can look at the CDS to see how the college rates those traits (usually not very high, at least at her colleges) but still, maybe they sometimes tip the balance. The college that offered the highest merit scholarship says they don’t consider state or geographic residence, or first generation status.
Another “unquantifiable” is that she submitted an art supplement even though she does not plan to major in art. The areas of interest that she reported when signing up for college emails, are all over the map, including art of course even though not as a major, some STEM areas, and some foreign language.
So far her 2 EA schools have awarded $15K and $27K merit aid. These are private schools where the cost of attendance is in the mid $50K range. D’s SAT scores are not all above 75% (one subscore falls at 25% for one college), likewise her GPA appears to be in the upper end but definitely not the top. She just barely falls in the top CDS GPA category, which is populated with the largest percentage of the freshmen at each school.
The school that has offered $27K is a great match and I think the college recognizes that. It is a small LAC where she would both thrive and contribute a lot to campus life, academic and otherwise. She got a long personal reply from a professor after submitting her art supplement. That college offers an obscure foreign language she is interested in, along with their own study abroad program for that language.
This is very similar to our experience with financial aid and boarding school, where a school that was a perfect match offered extremely generous financial aid even though their FinAid stats were not very promising. I would say the boarding school and the LAC’s recognized their own.
I hope maybe this gives you some food for thought and helps you find what you’re looking for.
As an aside, D took on more leadership responsibilities senior year but that’s not much to show when applying to colleges in November. I had nagged her from time to time about how she needed more “stuff” to put on college applications but she was adamant that she was taking on just the right balance of academics, EC’s and personal life. She also did not feel ready for leadership until senior year. She needs a lot of need based aid so the story is not over yet.