<p>I'm currently a sophomore in high school who will be doing the IB Program this coming school year. I fence on the school team and there's about a 30% chance I'd say that I'll be on varsity this upcoming year. My true passion lays in the sciences however, particularly Computer Science and surrounding fields. I recently won the Excellence in Computer Science Award (Junior Division which includes freshmen and sophomores) from Intel Corp. at a regional science fair. My project was creating an artificial intelligence that could get from a point A to a point B while avoiding objects along the way. It was also supposed to have much more impressive capabilities which I'm not willing to disclose here, but I never built in time for the fair because I procrastinated to an extreme extent. I'm going to build these capabilities over the summer and enter them in next year's fair which I'm almost sure will lead me to a higher prize and possibly a trip to ISEF (Intel International Science and Engineering Fair). My school is starting up a programming club next year and there's a strong likelihood that I will be president. Outside of fencing I'm not very active in any school-sponsored extracurriculars since many are boring to me and I prefer to work on my own individual projects and with my own guidance opposed to something that pretty much already has an instruction manual attached to it. I volunteer regularly at a retirement home.
My grades do not live up to my other achievements unfortunately. Freshman year was definitely not the best. I ended it with a 3.0 GPA. This year is better however since the way things are looking shows it will be about a 3.4, at the highest a 3.6.</p>
<p>It is getting late where I live, so I'll post my exact grades and classes tomorrow. For now though, please chance me for this list:</p>
<p>Boston University
Rutgers
Cornell
Stanford
MIT
Harvard
Caltech</p>
<p>Honors is the highest level you can take, advanced is the second highest.</p>
<p>Freshman Year:
Biology (Honors/Pre-IB): 88.29
English 1 (Advanced): 85.72
French 2 (Advanced): 81.94
Geometry (Advanced): 85.12
Intro Piano (Elective): 93.76
Robotics (Elective, teacher graded very oddly): 88.5
World History (Advanced): 76.7 (the teacher had a screw loose, even friends who almost always get A’s exclusively got B’s in his class)</p>
<p>Sophomore Year (Not yet complete, but these are the averages of the three completed quarters):
Algebra 2 (Advanced): 84.42 (on track for getting an A this quarter)
Chemistry (Honors/Pre-IB): 87.08
Digital Photo (Elective): 91.04
Engineering Robotics (Elective, the teacher grades very oddly): 83.52
English 2 (Honors/Pre-IB): 83.13
French 3 (Advanced): 83.92
US History 1 (Advanced): 92.22</p>
<p>My Classes for Junior Year:
Computer Science (IB)
Physics (IB)
Pre-Calculus (IB)
US History 2 (IB)
French 4 (Advanced)
English 3 (Advanced)</p>
<p>Work hard and try to bring up your GPA. You will need a minimum of 3.8 GPA (assuming you get great test scores too) in order to apply to these top schools.</p>
<p>Do Ivy League schools have a rule where they refuse to look at anyone with a GPA below 3.8? Even if I somehow got a 4.0 junior year there’s no way I can get above a 3.6. From what I’ve been looking through, a few of the schools I listed have GPA requirements below that.</p>
<p>Boston University: Match/Low Reach
Rutgers Match/Low Reach
Cornell Reach
Stanford Highly doubt it (Sorry, brutal honesty, they have the lowest acceptance rate in the country and 3.6 isn’t going to impress)
MIT High Reach
Harvard Same as Standford
Caltech High Reach</p>
<p>Hey, I could be completely off the mark here, you never know. But it’s just my personal opinion. Good luck!</p>