On the merit aid / athletic aid issue -
An RC at a Div 1 school told me that at his school, any athletic aid counts dollar for dollar against the fin. aid offices calculated Family Need (as buddybaseball implied) but to give an example for more claification...
Say the colleges says you should get 10,000 in aid...and the baseball program offers you $3,000...at this school the baseball team would actually have to give you $13,000 to give you a $3,000 baseball scholly...odds are that will not happen...aka - your value to the program increases by 10K --they would rather take their chances on you coming as an invited walk-on with the 10k from the school...just an example...and it will vary from school to school
But it brings me to this point...if you are a good enough student to get significant merit aid at school...you might be recruited hard, but not offered money - the sell will be you can get a lot of money without baseball...
To top it off!? I was told by the coach "This stuff gets so confusing...I am not sure I even get it all the time."