<p>Illinois took one of our not-so-bright kids OOS; I don’t know him, but all I know is that there was a rumor that he had got into Cornell and everyone was like WHAT. So you can probably pry some merit money from them because you are not “not-so-bright”. Also, really do look at Early Action; I look a /lot/ like you extracurricularly (replace “Quiz Bowl” with “Certamen”), SAT-wise (800-800-760), and class-rank-wise (maybe a bit lower; I do go to a top-10 public HS, though), and I got into Chicago early oh well there we go no safeties needed Yay! Only two more applications to send off! Get good recs, write good essays, you will get into someplace good (not necessarily Chicago, not necessarily top 20, but good), and the good places tend to be pretty generous. Some of your safeties may even have early action programs. I know people who did instate to the non-flagship, or to Georgia Tech. Depending on when the college gives you its financial aid offer after getting an early acceptance, though, you might still need to apply to some more generous safeties.</p>
<p>Still 'grats on the NLE. Not so many of you, either. :)</p>