If you live in Northern VA, Huntsville is not that much farther than Worcester. A few hours.
UCF is enormous - one of the largest colleges in the nation. WPI is a reasonable size as is UAH.
As for WPI and merit, how much are you looking for? You say cost not relevant - but then you are hoping for merit. I looked on past chats and saw merit from $13-32K. You might be able to get a pre-read.
If you want merit, you don’t get better than Alabama, Arizona (maybe not at his GPA), UAH, MS State, Arkansas, Missouri Science & Tech - but then you can’t worry about distance. If you want the $$, you have to go to where they have the $$. UTK another with decent $$.
The reality is - a 3.8 UW or 4.06 wtd on a 5 scale is - for engineering colleges - nice but not a stud. At every school that I mentioned, these kids are - I don’t want to say a dime a dozen - but definitely extremely common. Engineering is at a whole other level when it comes to the HS academics of kids going to the high merit colleges.
Two other schools I hear great things about on the CC - but again, too far, are Iowa State and Kansas State.
Anyway, you have 20 Common App slots so you can always apply and see what happens People that want merit - have to play the game - and the game means taking auto merit or expanding your base.