Definitely take cc with a grain of salt. It’s actually a fairly small, skewed community with lots of anecdotal evidence.
Rather than worrying about generalities/averages/the kid next door/etc., I would encourage you to find schools that would love to have a kid like your S (*see my note below). Then throw in a couple of safeties, maybe a couple of shoot for the moon. The bulk should be schools where after studying the stats and available info, it appears your S has maybe a 50-50 chance of admission or merit or “insert your goal here.”
And of course, go over the financials with your son and set clear limits. Don’t let him apply to schools that do not offer merit unless in the end you’d be willing to pay full freight for that particular school.
FWIW here’s our anecdotal results :
State flagship safety – applied very early though no official EA – accepted (was really nice having this in hand in the fall of senior year)
2 LAC’s EA – accepted at both
6 other LAC’s RD – 1 admit, 3 denies, 2 waitlists (which D declined)
D received completely unexpected merit awards of $16k, $24k, and $27K from the 3 LAC’s that accepted her, no special applications or anything.
*NOTE: “schools that would love to have a kid like yours” does not have to mean schools with stats way below S’s. It can mean that a college is seeking more music majors, trying to increase diversity, or is looking for qualities that your son just happens to have. Explore college mission statements, look at what they’re saying in press releases and other stuff you can find by googling but may not be front and center on their homepage, although most/many colleges do have a section about the type of student they are looking for.