And if you are accepted by CMU, Yale, or UDub, you might need to learn to love canines instead of ursines. Bulldogs, Huskies, and CMU has their little Scottish Terrior mascot.
Does the regents scholarship pay your tuition? The description says it pays your need… which isn’t the same thing.
@Hamurtle True 
@Greymeer I don’t really know. maybe @ucbalumnus knows?
I suspect if the financial aid office says your family can afford 50k per year… your “need” is tuition-50k. Then the only real benefit is priority registration for classes.
Don’t know about need based aid, but don’t hold your breadth on CMU offering any merit. No Ivy is better than Berkeley for CS. Unless you wanted to go into say the financial sector.
Regents is merit based. If you don’t have any need, it’s $2500 a year towards your cost. If you have need it may go up a bit more from what it sounds like. You also get a stipend towards research.
Hopefully you’ll receive multiple acceptances. In that case you can get really granular in your analysis of which offer is best for you. The more offers - the more better.
@Greyneer Thanks for the input!
@ProfessorPlum168 Yeah, Berkeley is definitely the leading contender right now. I’ll wait for the others before finalizing.
@Rivet2000 Thanks for the input! Hopefully I’ll have more offers to come!
@GoBears2023 - Congratulations on UCB admission - highly deserving. I am sure you will get into more great universities - appreciate if you can keep this thread open until you take a final decision and walk thru your decision process. I really liked the way you are taking in all the advice and explaining your thinking - many things to learn for people like me.
about your cc username, I thought you are a Chicago Bears fan 
I’ll keep updating this thread until June. Afterwards, I may start a blog or something. Also, the username was intended for Cornell but kinda failed. Its fine, the bear is a very versatile animal in terms of mascots for schools!
Historically, meets need based on FAFSA information without loans or work expectation. Since the loans or work expectation can be up to about $8,000 per year with normal FA, a Regents’ scholarship for a California resident who would otherwise get normal FA has a monetary value up to about $8,000 per year above normal FA.
@GoBears2023, Congratulations to you on your acceptances. My son had also gotten UC Berkeley Regents but in the end he picked USC with trustee scholarship.He has thoroughly enjoyed his experience at USC for past 3 and half years and is graduating with both BS/MS in CS within 4 years with multiple awesome internships. So do keep USC trustee as an option and go for USC explore as it might turn out to be cheaper for you than UCB. All the best to you for your scholarship interviews and your other results!
@GoBears2023 Congratulations! Cal’s EECS is the best undergraduate CS program. If finally you decide to go there, you will definitely love there. You will graduate in 3 years.
@CollegePicks
Thanks! Yes, USC’s scholarship program looks amazing. If I get to the scholarship offer, it will definitely be one of my top choices. Also, USC’s viterbi school is simply outstanding in all aspects!
@jenny001
Thank you for your kind words
However, I don’t think I’ll try to graduate in 3 years. I want to enjoy my time in college which means learning whatever my heart desires while having time to relax!
Looking forward to doing research!
UPDATE:
I got this two weeks ago but I also got a likely call from Yale. In the call, the AO said that I was part of a small group of outstanding STEM candidates. In addition, he said that the football coach would like to meet with me about potentially playing for the Bulldogs!
I was going to hold off till March but it seems that some people have been following this thread and I think it would be good for them to see the chronological order of things.
Self-reflection time:
Honestly, I would never have thought that I would be accepted into an HYPSM. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to potentially study at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. However, given that money will always be an issue, I will have to wait for the FA stuff to come out before anything is final. My advice for anyone reading this thread is to never give up and just try your best.
At the beginning of high school, I was super unmotivated and really didn’t know what my direction was. Believe it or not, I wanted to go into paleontology for the longest time until freshman year after I went to COSMOS. The following summer, I got the chance to go to Ross, which “solidified” my interest in mathematics. Boy was I wrong. In junior year, after playing around with APIs and stuff, CS became my calling. If you take the time to simply explore different fields, I guarantee that you will find your path.
Sorry if this is too long. Just had to get some thoughts out there. Hope you enjoyed it!
Another advice for students:
Too many of you guys stress out about the tiniest of things. No, one B won’t kill your chances at college. No, the fact that you are the VP of a club doesn’t ruin your credibility. No, you don’t need to be the class president and valedictorian in order to get into an IVY. My strongest advice for everyone is to focus on feeding your innate curiosity. Whether it be diving in the coral reefs to get a taste of marine biology or sky diving to perfect your wing suit prototype, curiosity can take you places you never could have imagined.
The current education system seems to be focusing on competition amongst students rather than nurturing students to follow their passions and giving them the necessary skills to excel in whatever they want to do. In my opinion, we should seriously reconsider our approach to education as a whole. Students should not have to worry about grades but rather whether or not they can try out all the things they are interested in. I propose that high schools and colleges should come together to remove the importance of grades and instead stress the importance of academic curiosity as a whole. College admissions should focus on how far a student has delved into a particular field rather than pitting a student who is a well-oiled test machine against another student who may not be the best at the ER&W section of the SAT but has taken advantage of all the opportunities they have and making something great out of it.
Feel free to add your opinion below. This is just my viewpoint on curiosity and its current role in the somewhat flawed American Education system.
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@GoBears2023, I saw that you are interested in doing research, So also wanted to let you know that USC also gives out Viterbi undergraduate research fellowship to the trustee scholars that allows you to do research starting your freshman year and you also get paid a research stipend.
See below:
http://viterbiadmission.usc.edu/fellows/
Congratulations on getting the Yale likely letter! Any HYPSM or other elite private college will fully meet your need based financial aid. So, you have some great options! I like your positive spirit and advice to all! Thanks!
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@CollegePicks
The stipend is definitely enticing! I would be able to research whatever I want while getting paid to do it!
Thanks for your kind words! Super fortunate to be getting into a HYP and look forward to seeing what else will happen in March!
Congrats on your successes @GoBears2023 ! It is great to see someone like you - a hard worker with true intellectual curiosity - successful in this process. I think you are right on about the needed overhauls in American education. Look forward to hearing about your decision, but no rush!
@sunnyschool
Thanks for the compliment! It’s great to see that someone agrees with me about the education system. There is so much work that needs to be done in order to nurture a more intellectually curious society. Hopefully we can start making the changes necessary to do so
USC is off-topic and a moot point since the OP didn’t apply there according to his original list.