Some D3 schools, excellent schools (but not the very most competitive for admissions - is that what you mean by "elite"?), offer generous academic merit money, if your SAT scores are well above the schools' averages. There is definitely a sweet spot in the long list of D3 schools, if your son qualifies on the academic and athletic front, but it's not that easy to figure out. One way to find it, is to look first for % acceptance (the lower the %, the less likely they will give academic merit money at all - from our research, perhaps merit money begins about a 33% acceptance rate?). Then look at the school's mean SAT/ACT scores and GPAs, and see where your son compares - the more he is above the average, the more money he may receive. Then look at the D3 baseball rankings if you want to think about its baseball program, or compare it to US News rankings.