Well, I’m sure he’s going to have great options in the UC system. As MWolf says, that sets the bar very high, especially if he doesn’t like cold winters. Does it really make sense to pay double the cost of a UC for the Ivy “brand” when it’s not a superior CS education and he doesn’t really want to leave CA anyway? He’s likely to get some Regents offers, which have varying perks at the different UC schools (but priority registration is a huge one that helps to neutralize one of the biggest downsides of a large public U; and some like UCSD include mentoring and research opportunities as well). If he hasn’t considered the College for Creative Studies at UCSB (which has its own additional application), their Computing major is another option to consider, offering the benefits of a smaller program with a research focus, without giving up the benefits of a large university. https://ccs.ucsb.edu/majors/computing He may well get in everywhere he applies in the UC system; and even if he doesn’t, he’ll certainly have good options. Good luck with Stanford - it could happen, but there are so many high-stats NorCal students applying that they simply have to reject most of them if only for the sake of geographic diversity. (But then, I heard about one kid who moved out of California to live with family in another state, just to have a better shot at Stanford… and still didn’t get in.) But if Stanford doesn’t pan out for undergrad, there’s always grad school 