<p>I'm currently going into my junior year (a bit early to start thinking about it, I know) but I've always wanted to go to Amherst/Williams/Bates since I was in middle school. I have been getting straight A's with the exception of AP Government and Algebra in my freshman year (they were B's) and I currently have a 4.0 unweighted and 4.6 weighted GPA. I have taken two AP courses since freshman year and this year I will be taking three more, along with honors classes. I'm a member of NHS, student government, a representive of the sophomore/soon to be junior class, Key Club, Drama Club, Student Voice, and Event Staff. I did really well on the PSATS (I took them twice) and I got 5's on both AP tests that I took in freshman and sophomore year. I'm also a track and tennis player if that even matters :)</p>
<p>The problem is, if I was going to private school/boarding school I would have no problem getting into Amherst, as my cousin did and she went to NDP and had almost the same credentials as me in her junior year. Since I'm going to a public school in a pretty much irrelevant small town, where only three kids in ten years have gone to Ivies, I pretty much have no shot of getting in. Nobody in my school has ever gotten in Amherst or Bates (one kid went to Williams though) and my advisor told me to "shot where I can reach." Basically, that means go to College Park with the other fifty kids who got in. I love Maryland, but I have fallen in love with Amherst and New England. The other thing is I'm definitely no valedictorian and I haven't built houses in Haiti or anything that would really make me "pop" to the admissions officers. After all, I'm pretty sure less then 15% of applicants even get into Amherst. The one good thing is in the last two years my school has been in the top 5% of schools in the nation, so I have gotten a good education.</p>
<p>But do I have a shot at Amherst?</p>