@gearmom u really are an awesome person, best wishes to u and ur family 
Strong A-levels would help.
So your dad wants you to take a gap year and then apply to US schools?
@PurpleTitan yes exactly like that. Additionally I can apply to oxbridge + imperial, and if all else fails I can probably try and defer my entry for St. Andrews to next year.
The high A levels moves you into a different category from what you were at the beginning of this thread. The US school that I now think you might have a decent chance for is Berkeley. It’s a top school for computer science. It’s located right there in the Bay Area near all the big tech companies. It has a strong international reputation. And for a state school it accepts a fair number of foreigners. And the strong A levels plus a 1420 just might be good enough. (1420 is still probably too low for Stanford or MIT)… So I say shoot for Oxbridge and Berkeley. Acceptance by one or more of those three schools is real possibility.
Did you try for those top UK schools this past round?
@PurpleTitan Hmm my predicted grades were lower than most their entry requirements, my list was Exeter, Imperial, UCL, St Andrews and Lancaster: because of my grades, UCL and Imperial denied I think.
@asmaster24 A first pass for you.
The top school for that field, Cybersecurity, is Carnegie Mellon. (according to my husband/confirmed as far as I can tell with online sources). Cybersecurity is a subset of Information Security, all of which is emerging as increasingly important as I’m sure you know. Different universities become centers of excellence for certain fields. For cybersecurity (according to H), the big thinkers who worked on projects such as the Capability Maturity Model, UML etc… went to Carnegie Mellon. Additionally, Carnegie Mellon is most cited in professional publications on that topic (according to H).
In general, as an undergraduate, Cybersecurity tends to be an concentration rather than a primary field of study. You have to walk before you can run. Meaningful study in Cybersecurity really starts at the graduate level. For undergraduate, aim for the best computer science education.
For American universities, for computer science:
Looking at cost and your stats and selectivity. (though computer science is so competitive in general).
Some top colleges simply seemed out of your 200k price range (or 50k a year). The California ones like Berkeley and New York ones like NYU which are in the 60 to 70k a year range and not known for aid. Universities like UIUC charge more for international students (57.5 k a year, CS which is in College of Engineering). Some colleges your SAT is very low ie.Carnegie Mellon or below average NYU, RPI.
FIRST PASS: based on a lot of things which includes your A levels pushing you over the finish line ($ is per year with your max budget 50k per year):
Dream School: Carnegie Mellon is both over budget (68k) and your SAT is really below average not sure how superstar A levels would factor in
Reach?: University of Washington (51k) and Georgia Tech (known as the public MIT) (48k)
Match?: Purdue (46k), Rutgers (which is known as a good school for cybersecurity) (50k)
Safety? (though not sure if there are safeties for CS): UMass Amherst 46k and I included your mentioned University of Arizona (public ivy) because your SAT score is very high compared to average 52k
For your safeties, I would see what you’re given for merit aid. You could get very high merit packages. Your yearly cost might be 30k or below.
When results come in you should evaluate against top UK options. Imperial would be such a top choice that attending that and THEN Carnegie Mellon for graduate school might be a clear best path. You don’t want to give away a shiny opportunity in the UK for an early entrance into the American university system when you can get greater mileage by waiting for graduate school. Also measuring aid packages, I’m not sure I’d spend an additional 20k a year for certain universities though everyone has different spending tolerances.
Some of the early deadlines are November 1st. I’d submit in October.
This list seems more reasonable. Shanghai ranking had Carnegie Mellon at #80!
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science
^Oops low ranking for Carnegie Mellon on a different list. Shanghai has Carnegie Mellon at #6. Sorry Shanghai rankings.