Chance Me! Do I even have a chance at MIT, Ivy Leagues, Caltech, Berkeley? Junior year

<p>What should I do to increase my chances this last year!?</p>

<p>School
-GPA: 4.0 unweighted/4.15 weighted (highest in my grade)
-SAT: 689 CR/670 MA/680 WR (planning on retaking)
-ACT: 32 E, 33 M, 32 R, 30 S, 10 Essay (planning on retaking
-SAT II: not taken yet
-APs: Currently taking AP Lang & Comp, AP Stat, and AP Chem; 3 on AP US History (I know... Freshman year), 5 AP Calc AB, 5 AP Gov
-Rank: 1 out of 276
-Senior course load: Going to be 4 APs (most possible per year at my school), an engineering course, Spanish II, and general music (still need those last three credits)
-School type: Rural public
-There has only been two people who even applied to an Ivy League/MIT/Caltech from my school within the past 5 years. No one has ever made it to one</p>

<p>Awards
-Eastern Shore Math Competition winner
-NHS
-NTHS</p>

<p>Extracurriculars
-Cross country, varsity athlete (11)
-Indoor track, varsity athlete (11)
-Outdoor track, varsity athlete (11)
-Teen Court jury foreperson (9,10,11)
-Chess club (9,10,11)</p>

<p>Volunteer work:
-Math tutor (11)
-Library Internship (Computer science/systems engineer)
-Historical Association</p>

<p>Other</p>

<p>-State: Maryland (Not the good Maryland, Eastern Shore Maryland
-Gender: Male
-Income: Below poverty line
-Race: white</p>

<p>Work on your SAT, try to get involved in more extracurricular competitions in your field of interest, see if you can do a research project (maybe you can draw on your experiences from living in a rural area?) or internship</p>

<p>@antwanmon</p>

<p>I can’t seem to find more extracurricular competitions in my area… rural areas blow</p>

<p>Any recommendations for a research project? No one in my area really tries for these big colleges so I don’t even have a clue where to start</p>

<p>no ones gonna give u a research project that hasnt already been done; otherwise they would conduct the experiment</p>

<p>Yea redo the SATs</p>

<h2>The good thing is your best in your class, which I think counts for something big</h2>

<p>Extracurriculars are :l because you did XC and Track only in 11th, and since you went straight to varsity its inferred your team is bad</p>

<p>I went to states, if that counts for anything…</p>

<p>@Rurouni </p>

<p>I mean, like what does a high school research project entail?
Do I just do a project outside of school and report it to colleges like it is something important, or?</p>

<p>colleges dont care about ur reserach unless its published or u get an award a real science fair eg intel, siemens, </p>

<p>so you cant just ■■■■■■■■ a science project and make it sound important, cause you come off as kind of pretentious</p>