For new UC admits, how good was your merit aid scholarships?

As mentioned above, generally speaking AP credits don’t help that much at the UCs, but it depends on which major, which school/college and which university. Students often come in with 25-50 AP credits and theoretically they do count towards graduation, but you’ll probably find that you’ll go well over the 120-180 Unit threshold because of requirements anyways, plus some of the credits become null credits, ie one you take a class at the college level it replaces the AP credit.

I would say though that for the UCs, saving one semester or two quarters is a reasonable expectation for the right APs.