<p>Hey all. I've often referenced CC for many of my college questions in the past, but I only just made an account today to ask one question: do you think I can get into these reach schools? My reaches include Duke (#1 choice), Northwestern (#2 choice), WashU in St. Louis, and Vanderbilt. Some less competitive ones that I'd love to get into would be U of Michigan, Ohio State U (I live in Columbus OH, dad's med center faculty), Emory, and U of Rochester (for the research opportunities). I'm also applying to McGill and UToronto in Canada, as I'm a dual Canadian-American citizen. </p>
<p>GPA:
4.0 UW freshman
3.95 UW, 4.23 W sophomore
3.72 UW, 4.07 W junior (absolute garbage year-procrastination/apathy at an all time high)
Hon Senior Seminar (Requisite senior course at my school): A+, 4.4 weighted</p>
<p>My first semester senior grades aren't in yet, but I can give an accurate prediction:
As it stands now: 3.67 UW, 4.09 W
What I can bring it up to by end of 1st sem: 3.72 UW, 4.22 W
CUM GPA Before Senior Year Started: 3.90 UW, 4.11 W</p>
<p>Cirric (including senior year) - 7 APs, 6 Honours. Took the hardest classes available to me.
AP Scores: European Hist - 4, Language and Comp - 4, Chem - 5, AP Computer Sci - 1 (fell asleep) </p>
<p>SAT/ACT:
SAT I: 2380 - 800R, 780M, 800W
SAT II: 760 Chem, 720 Math (going to try to boost it on the Jan 26th date if the colleges will accept scores that late)
ACT Comp: 34. Waiting on another result, comes back this week. </p>
<p>National Merit Commended scholar</p>
<p>ECs: </p>
<p>Music - I play clarinet. Didn't have time for it in my schedule this year, but I've taken band for four years. Eighth grade was my first year playing. I tried out for the high school's Honour band in summer after 8th and was granted First Chair (auditioned ahead of juniors and seniors, first freshman to ever hold first chair in a section). Played in OMEA (Ohio Music Education Association) soloist competition my soph year, received highest score. Maintained position of first chair until I quit band. Regularly take private lessons. Participate in the community wind ensemble when I have time. </p>
<p>Zero Robotics High School Competition - Programming/Physics Comp held by MIT/NASA/DARPA. Organized a team to compete, first time my school is competing. We're going to the finals (where we'll test our code on the International Space Station).</p>
<p>A couple other computer science competitions, the descriptions for which I'm omitting due to the verbosity of this thread. Scored very high marks in each, though. </p>
<p>Summer Intern for Air Force Research Lab - Internship was ten weeks of working on a problem germane to the AF. We engineered a versatile search and rescue robot. Work was featured in Robot magazine, CSTA Voice magazine, Columbus Dispatch (city newspaper), and other local newspapers. Will present at the 2013 Ohio eTech conference. Continued as an unpaid intern for them during the school year, enhancing our robot. </p>
<p>Robotic Application and Wildlife Photography - Same approach as my summer internship. Starting this December, my team and I are engineering another two robots that will take pictures of animals in Africa (will be deployed in the summer). Each robot will cost about $3500 to build. Progress will be featured in Robot magazine, and who knows where else once we're done. </p>
<p>Science Olympiad two years - medaled at invitational, regional, and state levels. </p>
<p>Smart Phone Academy/Virtual Reality Academy - Semester-long classes put on by the AF Research Lab held in virtual reality. Teach programming, leadership, robotics applications, virtual reality, etc. </p>
<p>The reason my grades been so low the past two years is PROCRASTINATION. I have a serious problem, and I'm only really working to rectify it now. To put it in perspective, I've never studied for a final, an AP exam, or an SAT/ACT. Junior year was especially awful because I would consistently pull 3 to 5 all-nighters a week, and I would fall asleep during my exams. I know colleges would hate to here this, and so do I. I've been really trying to work my @$$ off this past semester because it's only recently that I've mustered the self-discipline to get my act together and study. Senior year grades look quite awful, as well, because I didn't turn in much of my summer homework (in part due to my internship). Ended up with a 78 in AP Gov for 1st quarter - my first C. I really do have big dreams for college and my future, and always have; I'm not an apathetic teenager. I guess I was just too lazy to fix my problem. I want to go somewhere I can do big research in astrophysics or particle physics or something in physics/chem. Possibly Neuroscience. </p>
<p>Oh and my rec letters - one should be excellent, the other just 'very good/good' And I consider myself to be an alright writer, so my essay should be pretty good. I'm just limited by time since I'm applying so late. </p>
<p>I know it's a really long thread, but ANY comments/advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>