Apparently, I have not wrapped my head around college costs. I thought 50K a year was a reasonable cost expectation for college. Gee whiz I need to dive into the actual numbers. I was trying to come up with a number using 529 balances without having to dip into other savings or cash flow. Ugh to all this.
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Oh! You are exactly where I was about a year ago. 
My next eye opener was learning about med school costs and options to fund (mom/dad or loans). So then we really started looking at merit to preserve the 529 for med/grad. I was embarrassingly naive.
Check out Centre College.
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You might want to take a look at @Lindagaf 's wonderful thread on the Average Excellent Student. I’m not sure how to link but you should be able to find it using Search. It really is shocking to start this process with assumptions based on much earlier experience, but the good news is that there are lots of terrific schools that offer merit aid to attract students like yours. A number of those schools have already been mentioned above. Trinity U. in San Antonio is another. If your son finds a school that looks interesting, you can check the Financial Aid page to see what sort of merit may be available. Most of the NESCAC schools in the Northeast do not, for example, offer merit aid, but Conn College and Trinity College do, so you need to check school by school. I also realized rather late in the game that the Net Price Calculators on some college websites forecast merit aid as well as financial aid. The larger college/LAC issue really depends upon the child. We sent my son to sports camps at a couple of larger universities while he was in high school, and then the first time we showed him a smaller LAC (Occidental, as it happened), larger universities were off the table. He is a sophomore at Denison now, and we have found that a good LAC still offers lots of options and opportunities to explore for an undecided student. The other advice I received here that turned out to be very valuable was to look for some candidate schools that offer Early Action. Early Action is nonbinding, but your student may have an offer before Thanksgiving, which can provide tremendous peace of mind and allow him to target some reachier schools in the RD round. ED is a whole other story. It can offer advantages, but the student needs to be sure. Our son did not apply anywhere ED, only EA and RD, and everything worked out fine.
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@shmom41 Sounds similar to mine except we had fewer AP’s and more EC’s/leadership and came from a smaller school.
Oxford College at Emory! We found out about it too late.
Don‘t worry about this year. Just apply for fit. Pick a few reaches, a few safeties and a slew of possibles.
Make sure he gets a summer job and does something else EC. Mine grew up so much during the summer before senior year and it gave him some good talking points for essays.
You will have geographic diversity applying from southern midwest, especially in North East and New England. Look for small LAC’s that are Ph.d feeders and attract like-minded intellectually curious kids. Also, search „Open curriculum.“ Those are schools that are designed to take a smart kid and help them develop critical thinking skills while focusing their career goals. Many have strong career/alum networks which value not the major but the whole person that is nurtured by these schools. These are also feeders for many other graduate programs like med and law school. Get a subscription to USNWR Compass and examine average class sizes and what percentage of classes are above and below 20, 50, etc. There is no way to not be engaged when he is one of 14 in a class. We avoided schools with fraternities so several schools while tempting, were out.
Look at:
Bowdoin
Bates
Hamilton
Macalester
Carleton
Rhodes
Franklin & Marshall
Gettysburg
Amherst
Middlebury
Wesleyan
I would not consider any of the foregoing to be safeties, by the way. Seek strong regional schools and lower ranked LAC’s as safeties. Those will be smaller and more nurturing than a large U. Providence College, Bentley U Are both #1 in East. Rollins in South, Butler in Midwest, Trinity University in West (even though it is in TX). Hope College, Beloit College are two small LAC‘s that come to mind but there are many more.
If applying to a larger U, try direct entry into B schools as a back-up. Most have liberal arts requirements during the first 2 years and if he wants to stay, he can. It’s much harder to get in, if not impossible, after the fact. But B schools typically take a small number and provide special advisory, etc. So he would be 1/600 out of a class or 8000.
If he MIGHT want engineering, look at BC. They have a new human centered engineering program.
Also, Tufts and BU if he seeks something larger.
There are many more. Look at fit, overall environment, access and engagement to nearby town, service, research, internship opportunities and Recreational opportunities for non-athletes. Good luck!
*I forgot you have a tuition cap. S‘21 received sizable merit from Macalester, Rhodes, PC and Bentley. I am sure there are many on my list that are out based on available merit money. Sorry about that.
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I think people are forgetting the OP said they wouldn’t qualify for FA but only wanted to pay $50,000/year. That takesall the most selective schools suggested by many posters off the table.
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@cinnamon1212 Thanks for noting that.
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Take a look perhaps at the Jesuit colleges. They are service oriented, not preachy. They often give very good merit money and based on his stats he could get decreased tuition. The Jesuit colleges often have a decent mix of school spirit and academic support and overall just “nice” groups of students.
So maybe check out Creighton, SLU, Xavier (I know happy kids and parents at all 3). Gonzaga as well (that playoff bball game was wow!) Loyola New Orleans is on my kids list. Regis in Colorado may be a good location for them too.
Of the schools that offered DS merit (as an otherwise FP family) , Dickinson and Earlham were the least “party” schools. Denison and Union were both generous and can work for non-partiers as well.
The CTCL list is a good one, btw.
I wouldn’t undersell your kid – he’ll be attractive to a lot of schools-- but you are smart to realize that the stats that got someone admitted 30 years ago are now the stats that keep the app out of the garbage in the first screen.
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Lol my sister asked why my daughter was turning down Villanova, I told her the cost (same stats as your son, no merit), she told me she should apply to the university of Richmond (her school) because it’s a good deal for a private. I told her she might want to double check that. She set aside an additional $100,000 into her daughter’s college account (who will be attending in the fall). She had no idea how expensive college became.
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That budget will likely increase. It appears the OP may have the means but not the initial desire to spend more. My guess is many assumptions she came to CC with will be modified after she learns more here. 
After reading a few of the newish threads about applicants/families who just discovered CC and came to complain their college search+application process did not end as assumed, I think the OP will be thrilled she discovered CC so early in her process.
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Having had two kids go through the college process with two different strategies, I highly favor one that focuses on matches with a couple of safeties and low reaches for balance. If you’re looking to get to a budget of 50K, the colleges that change lives type LACs in the south and midwest are likely to get you there, typically with top merit scholarships that will discount cost of attendance by 30K. Alternatively, state universities with good honors programs can provide the best of both worlds - a built in peer group that is more serious academically - plus all the resources of a big school with respect to majors, etc. If he’s undecided regarding a major, he probably should have a couple of schools like these on his list. University of Kentucky would be one such example in your region. Others that are farther afield, where a student like your son could get substantial merit would be U of AZ, ASU (Barrett Honors), UNM, UT-Dallas, U of Utah (good for CS and game design as fields of study).
To me, he sounds more like a LAC kid and there are many to choose from. If he goes for a LAC, fit will be more important because they are smaller schools. Some are going to be more politically liberal (Oberlin), or lightly religiously affiliated (St. Olaf), or middle of the road (College of Wooster, Denison). This isn’t to say that an enterprising kid couldn’t find his peeps, just that he might be swimming against the dominant current. Many other examples of LACs have been offered upthread. Centre and Rhodes are two that might be relatively close to you.
Finally, if he’s a video games kid who might lean towards CS or STEM majors, check out Case Western, where he would find many young men that are similarly inclined. While it has become increasingly competitive and demonstrated interest is very important, it still offers merit awards that could get you to your budget limit. It’s medium sized and you don’t have to apply to a particular major or school. So if your kid decides midway through freshman year that he really wants to be an engineer, there are no barriers to entry. A similarly sized school that is also attainable is U of Rochester but I’m not sure about the details of its merit scholarships these days. I also hear good things about WPI and RPI.
Good luck!
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@mamaedefamilia @shmom41 Glad you mentioned the STEM schools along with a few other LAC‘s like St. Olaf. Just keep in mind, „gamer“ doesnnot equal STEM necessarily. Just because I like to watch television, doesn’t mean I know anything about building one, or even hooking up the cable and ancillary devices, 
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Yes, I know this! But I also know a number of young men who found their path to CS through gaming. Just trying to cover all of the bases. 
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For kids interested in esports… Miami OH? Shenandoah? Boise State? U of Akron? Bellevue?
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“Auburn, Alabama or South Carolina” are where “all my friends go” because all my friends can get in. For our HS in TX, it’s Arkansas, OU, Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss.
W&M is a solid pick. Colorado College has an average SAT of 1400 but 14% acceptance rate.
Don’t short change your son with those grades and solid rigor. Top colleges will know your high school very well since it’s a large private one. If he’s top 10% or top quarter, he’ll have a good shot at very solid options. The issue is cost and finding places with net cost of $50K per year. My kid goes to SMU and they would offer merit to your son but it’s one-third Greek. Only 6K undergrads though.
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Colorado College’s top merit award is 10K, which will not get the OP to budget. However, if it ends up being of interest, EA gives a fairly significant admissions boost. W&M potentially would be a great fit but has very limited merit aid for OOS.
In addition to Miami of Ohio as suggested by @2plustrio , maybe look at Ohio University. Yes, there is partying, but also a very interesting tutorial-based honors program that might be of interest.
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I feel your pain. Hard to believe so many colleges cost north of $50k per year. My husband is having a hard time wrapping his head around it.
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Good points. CC must really know their students with a 14% acceptance rate and little merit (50% yield!). Yes, ED I/II acceptance rates are 25% vs. 15% EA and 5% RD. Scratch that due to over $80K cost. And WM & Mary is much more expensive than I thought. $63K for OOS all-in. Even $23,600 for in-state tuition & fees is stout.
$50k/year is easily doable. I’d argue that paying any more than that is a poor investment, for any undergraduate degree, from any school, including engineering from MIT.
Now that’s NET cost. I’m not suggesting that you bypass every school that has a published COA of $50k/year or more. If you do, your choices will be limited. Get his test scores up and play the merit game.
Then it’s important to look at schools like Beloit, Juniata, etc. that are known for helping students find their path.
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