<p>I am a High School Junior who decided last year that I wanted to major in chemistry in college. I am an above average student, so I am aiming for higher level colleges (Caltech, Stanford, and Berkeley are my top 3 choices) and I want to know if there is any other way to make myself stand out from all the other science students.</p>
<p>By the end of my Senior year, I'll have taken 6 AP courses (3 of which are science and 1 is BC calculus). I took a BIO 101 course (AP Bio will be the one science AP I have not taken) for college credit over the summer at Penn University, and will most likely be doing a summer internship this summer related to chemistry. I compete in the chemistry and physics events in my schools Science Olympiad and academic bowl team. I have a 3.95 GPA unweighted and a 4.8 GPA weighted currently, and it probably isn't going to change much. My SAT scores are 2010 with a 660 in reading, a 670 in math, and a 680 in math.</p>
<p>Id be highly appreciative if anyone could tell me anything (other than higher SAT scores) that would help me stand out from the other science students at the schools I mentioned above (specifically Caltech).</p>
<p>I don’t know about Berkeley but CalTech and Standford will require more than just competing in Science Olympiad, etc at your school, they’ll want to see winning at the state level. I think being involved in some sort of activity related to science not specifically associated with a competition would be a big plus. Do independent research or working with a professor in a lab would be the type of stuff that would help. Think about it this way, it’s not so much what you joined but what you excelled at or created.</p>
<p>I disagree with Sadilly in that your only option is state/national competition. Of course that would be helpful but if you can’t do that it isn’t the end of the world. Lab work is huge though, try as hard as possible to get yourself lab experience, just email many professors and try and work on something. Then write a paper and submit to Siemens or Intel competitions. My school has a very good counseling dept. and one of our counselors used to work for Columbia Undergrad Admissions as an officer or something along those lines, she said that just submitting projects to these competitions shows a level of commitment to science.</p>
<p>My SAT scores are 2010 with a 660 in reading, a 670 in math, and a 680 in math.</p>
<p>Those scores will effectively eliminate you from consideration, so order a copy of the Collegboards SAT prep book and start taking practice tests as often as you can, i.e once a week if possible. You need to raise your mat and cr scores above the mid 750’s to put your app in the “maybe” file.</p>
<p>^I’m already working on that, I’m talking more of internships and stuff</p>
<p>Moonman676 and Sadily:Thanks, I’m going to be in contact with a research chemist who is going to see if she can get me an internship somewhere nearby. Do you think thats good enough?</p>
<p>That should definitely work, just make sure you end up with someone who really WANTS you there and wants to teach you and allow you to grow as a scientist. I was lucky enough to have a great mentor, so I hope you do too.</p>
<p>If that approach doesn’t work out, just send emails out to many researchers in your area and see what happens.</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that state/national competition was the only way. I think the lab work is the better option.Contact with the research chemist is the way to go. I was only trying to say if you are only relying on academic competitions, your entries need to be good enough to get out of the local level.</p>