S18 has been accepted to UC Santa Barbara, Davis, Riverside and Santa Cruz. So far, UCLA is his only rejection. UC Berkeley, UCI and UCSD haven't reported yet.
Then comes the hard part - deciding! Neither my H nor I had to go through this part when we applied to college - I couldn't afford to go anywhere but my local UC, and H only got accepted to one school!
With my S, there are so many things to consider - not just academic excellence, but breadth in his side interests, availability of an appropriate band for him to play in, and most importantly, social issues.
He's a friendly, extroverted type - but pretty far to the eccentric (okay, sometimes weird) nerdy kid with little ability to read social cues. So he really needs to be someplace with an active social structure, lots of smart kids so he can find his equivalently eccentric peers, a place to fit in. I'm sure any of these schools will have kids like my S - the question is just which schools will have a social structure that helps him to find them?
