Encourage your 2022 Grad to research merit and scholarship opportunities. Look at what the different programs offer her beyond scholarship money - honors housing, leadership training, mentoring, civic engagement, internships, study abroad, research, etc… Understand the commitment applying ED means financially and hold off on the ED option, so she can consider everything. Some of the deadlines for merit scholarships/honors colleges come up in October and by November 1. Some you apply with Common App early action and you are automatically considered and others have multiple steps and additional essays and interviews. They need to keep up with their emails and portal logins to manage deadlines and next steps.
She is well positioned to save some money for grad school/law school/your retirement.
We did not discourage our child with similar stats from applying to T20 and T50 schools, but we had open conversations about the costs. She did apply and she did get in to some and was offered about what we had calculated on the NPCs for the schools. 100% need schools and those with merit ended up having family contributions about the same in the end.
We did encourage her to apply for honors/merit programs that were unique to her interests and that would help balance out the financial costs. She was won over by a nonT20 with amazing opportunities for her and ended up getting a full scholarship there after she had already really made up her mind. That just made her feel even better about her choice. She focused efforts on three schools with a separate application process for merit. She did all of that on her own with a few friendly reminders about deadlines. I am not sure how some kids do more than that on top of the applications, senior year classes, and jobs.