If you didn't get into the university that you wanted to, here are few tips to consider for regular decision:

- Make a well-balanced college list. Don't apply to 20+ universities to impress the others, you will only waste time. Make a list of 10-12 universities, with the ones that are easy/moderate to get into but offer full scholarschip (these are usually offered as merit scholarships through separate applications). Make sure that you can devote enough time for each of them, so that if you don't get into a prestigious university, you still have a backup option.
- Don't apply to a certain university just because of the ranking. Ranking doesn't measure how good university is. Better option is to have a look at the acceptance rate and research about the college in general. Look at student reviews.
- Write your essays multiple times. Submit for a feedback. Rewrite again. It worth spending money on getting a proper feedback for your essays.
- Consider applying to need-aware prestigious universities with less financial aid request, then apply to EYUF. For example, apply to UPenn indicating that you can pay $30-40k (or any other that EYUF can afford). Applying without much financial need will increase your chances of getting in drastically, and you will have a higher chance of winning EYUF scholarship if your university is very prestigious. This is dumb but a valid idea.
- Create a validity for your achievements/extracurriculars. If you have a club, create a website for it (you don't need to know programming, any website maker tools like Wix work). If you are a photographer/videographer, upload your photos/videos to social medias or a certain cloud storage and provide the link. If you're a programmer, consider improving your GitHub profile.
- Some universities consider demonstrated interest in the admission process, so engage in contact with the universities far before the application deadline (follow them on social media, contact their admission officers...)
- Don't limit yourself with U.S. Apply to Stipendium Hungarium, Turkiye Burslari, universities in germany, korea, italy or any other parts of the world that can fund your studies