Chance a long-winded underachiever?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>Sorry for how lengthy this is...</p>

<p>User Name: lastexpress
Gender: M
College Class Year: 2013
High School: Private
High School Type: sends many grads to top schools</p>

<p>Academics:
My school doesn’t have AP classes, rank, or submit GPA. Just a brief pre-summary, I didn’t do nearly as well as I should have in freshman year (tough time adjusting to HS), did fine in sophomore year, and am doing quite well in junior year. The latter best reflects my academic potential, now if colleges could only see it that way…</p>

<p>9th grade:
Algebra: A-
English: B
History: B
French 3A: B-
Biology: C+</p>

<p>10th grade:
History: A-
Latin 1: A-
French 4: B+
English: B+
Chemistry: B
Geometry BA: B-</p>

<p>11th grade (end of year estimation):
English: A
French: A
Physics: A-
Precalculus 1A: A-
US History: B+</p>

<p>Scores:
SAT I Math: 760
SAT I Critical Reading: 740
SAT I Writing: 800
SAT II World History: 730 (will retake next year)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
HS Government
Democratic Club
School Radio
HS Theatre
Scrabble Team
Geography Club
Model Congress
School Political Journal
Model UN
School Newspaper
School Literary Journal
French Club</p>

<p>Leadership positions:
Head, Democratic Club
Probable head next year, Model Congress
Captain and Founder, Scrabble Team
Head and Founder, Geography Club
Host, Political show on School Radio
Running for HS President at the end of this year
9th Grade President
8th Grade President</p>

<p>Volunteer/Service Work:
-Interned in my U.S. Senator’s office (Summer '07)
-Soup Kitchen (Summer '07)
-Interned at a non-profit Congressional watchdog organization (Summer '06)
-Interned at Eliot Spitzer’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign (Summer '06)</p>

<p>Honors and Awards: Maxima Cum Laude, 2007 National Latin Exam
Theatre award at my school (can't really describe it better than that), 2007
National Merit Qualifier, 2007</p>

<p>Colleges (I understand many of these are probably reaches, but I don’t really have a grasp of what would be a match, et al.):
Bates
Boston University
Bowdoin
Brown (legacy)
Carleton
Connecticut College
Davidson
Georgetown-SFS
Grinnell
Johns Hopkins
Kenyon
McGill
Michigan-Ann Arbor
SUNY-Binghamton (in-state)
William and Mary</p>

<p>So, as you can see, I am extremely involved in the community (esp. concerning politics), have pretty good standardized tests, and have had upward progression in grades, though those 9th and 10th grade grades continue to dog me. I am going to take both English AP tests, plus the US History and US Government and Politics AP tests in May, as well as the US History, Math IIC, French, and possibly Lit SAT IIs at some point. I assume I’ll get good recs, and I’m a pretty strong essay writer. Chance me?</p>

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<p>you also might be interested in harvard, yale, princeton, stanford, mit, etc.</p>

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<p>I totally would be, but I'm going off the assumption that my 9th and 10th grade grades doom me from them....</p>

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<p>You created a Scrabble team? That's so cool!</p>

<p>...And interned for Spitzer, eh? Better not get inappropriate on these forums.</p>

<p>Nice list, it's better than what I had at the end of junior year; I can't say I know much about most of the colleges on it, though. Your school doesn't submit GPA? Also kind of strange, but judging from your scores, it looks like classes and grading are tough at your school.</p>

<p>I suggest not wasting your time and money retaking the World History SAT II next year; the most any schools ever ask for is three, so if you take the other four, you can choose the ones you do best on to send out.</p>

<p>You'll make it into Binghamton, I'm sure.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>Anyone else have insight to share? I would be most appreciative....</p>

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<p>Honestly, Master's idea is not too far-fetched. As always, the Ivies are very difficult to predict (and to get in), but all of the admissions people I met did mention that upward trends are fine. If you continue improving your academic record, you could give one or two a shot (as in, if you really want Brown, go for it and just see what happens ^^). </p>

<p>I don't know a lot about all of your schools in specific, but I will say that you shouldn't worry too much about the GPA. I think the rising trend and your extracurriculars (how do you do all of that at once? xD) will make up for it in a lot of cases.</p>

<p>No guarantees in life about these things. :) But don't freak yourself out unnecessarily.</p>

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<p>Update: I got back my March SAT, which I took to up my CR, but I got lower in each section out of all my practice tests and real tests, it was my lowest score :-/). I guess I'm now tacking on another question: while the original SAT better reflects my test-taking ability, and I scored higher in each section, will colleges look at my March one and take that into account in some negative way, or will they overlook it as a slight indiscretion? Much thanks...</p>

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<p>Bump... anyone else? :-)</p>

<p>And concerning my last sub-question, I've been told that that doesn't matter, so... yeah.</p>