It’s nice that your son has many schools to select from. Strange enough, for my son’s case there are not many waitlists, only UCI gave him waitlist. The rest is either accepts or rejects. I guess my son’s essay and stats are easy to recognize which type of schools he belongs.
He concentrated on STEM so much that his APs are all Science and Math except US History. He never cared about colleges, and he did not strategized what AP classes to take based on what colleges want to see. He just took AP classes that he liked.
Understandingly, the most small LAC might have thought he was not the good fit. He is too lopsided. Interestingly, one LAC invited him for the fly-in program, and he attended their virtual fly-in, ultimately he was rejected. I heard that kids who were invited most likely get accepted. I was shocked that he did not get even waitlisted, but my son did not care.
Other UC school he was accepted was UCSC.
(He did not apply to UCB nor UCD). Actually both UCSD and UCSC implement the liberal arts education even for the School of Engineering. This is different from other UC schools.
We live in San Diego, so that’s another reason he was accepted to UCSD. They just started another robotic team in 2019, and my son has been in the robotic team since he was in the 4th grade, and now a president of his high school robotic club. I am encouraging him to join the club if he decides to attend UCSD.
My son is also waiting for three more colleges all outside of California. Tufts, Rice and Cornell.
All are reach. But even if he gets accepted to any one of them, I started to think he should go to UCSD. Some mom kept telling me that Tuft’s Computer Science is mediocre. I did not believe it at first, but after researching, she was right. Their CS is not strong. Rice and UCSD CS are pretty much neck to neck. Cornell’s CS is very strong, but their name also helps the ranking. My son is interested in robotics and I read good article on the UCSD CS, Southern CA will be next Silicon Valley, and there started many robotic Tech companies participated to UCSD Robotics Contextual Institute.
https://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/release/2901
That’s really encouraging.