Decisions all in. Thank you all for your advice and support! I’m 95% sure he is going to choose UMass Amherst, but he isn’t ready to hit commit yet.
Two wrapping-up thoughts I have:
If you had pushed me to say a year ago where I thought he was most likely to end up if he did not get NMSF, I would’ve said UMass Amherst. But I had significant concerns about the size, the reputed party culture, and whether he would feel comfortable on campus. I think getting into the Honors College reduces the size and culture concerns. And he really liked the campus when we visited, much to my surprise.
I know it was hard for his ego to get these last few rejections. And as his mom, it’s hard for me to watch. I know he is smart enough and hard-working enough to do well at the schools that he did not get into, and I know that he would be an asset to their campus communities and a positive peer for the students around him. He did not get into any schools that had a sub 50% acceptance rate. He is going to end up at a place that will be good for him, but it does seem a little wild that a kid who has high SAT & GPA and essays & recommendations that were (at least) decent, only got into schools with high acceptance rates. On the other hand, there weren’t too many schools that have the majors he was interested in that fell in the 20 to 50% acceptance rate category, and it’s more important that he end up at a school good for him than that he get into somewhere more selective. 
Final Results
- Slippery Rock (accepted to IE; didn’t pursue merit or honors)
- SUNY Oswego (admitted to Elec Engineering; 2 merit scholarships make it $26,000/year)
- SUNY University at Buffalo (admitted to IE & Honors; $15,000/year merit makes it ~$31,000/year)
- Kansas State (accepted to IE; didn’t apply to honors; OOS tuition waiver plus $3000 Engineering scholarship makes it about $21,000/year)
- Mississippi State (accepted to IE & honors, auto-merit + $3K/year engineering scholarship, plus first year housing scholarship makes total cost ~$6000 first year, and about $14,000/year after)
- SUNY Binghamton (admitted to IE; $15,000/year merit makes the cost ~$33,000/year; invited to the Scholars program & to the First Year Research Intensive)
- University of Rhode Island (Admitted to IE & honors; $15,000/year merit makes it ~$36,000/year)
- UMass Amherst (Admitted to IE & Commonwealth Honors College; $2,000/year merit makes it ~$33,000/year since he is in-state)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Admitted to Industrial & Systems Eng; $35,500 in scholarships & $4,100 in need-based grants makes COA ~$43,000)
- Rochester Institute of Technology (admitted to Industrial Engineering; I can’t remember the exact merit award, but it made the final price about $48,000 per year)
Waitlisted
Case Western (They emailed him about two weeks before decisions were released to let him know that they are eliminating the systems engineering major that he applied for. If he had emailed them back that that was fine and there were lots of other majors at CWRU that he would be interested in, he might have been more likely to have been admitted. But he wasn’t interested without the systems engineering major.)
Rejected
Georgia Tech
Northeastern
Lehigh
Tufts