Chance Me Please

<p>Hello, I am currently a sophomore. I know that you guys will tell me to come back when I am a junior, but I am very nervous and am wondering if I could please get your help...</p>

<p>I am wondering about my chances to get into:
Caltech
Berkley
Stanford
MIT (probably not)
CO School of Mines (home state)
Franklin W. Olin
-or any other competitive math/science school? suggestions?</p>

<p>GPA:
Unweighted:
Freshman: 3.846
Sophomore: 4.0
Total: 3.9
Rank: 23 of 618
Weighted:
Freshman: 4.538
Sophomore: 4.714
Total: 4.6
Rank: 7 of 618</p>

<p>PSAT: Verbal-67 Math-69 Writing-61 Total (SI)-197
PLAN: English-25 Math-30 Reading-28 Science-32 Composite-29 </p>

<p>This year I will be taking AP Calculus BC, AP Biology, and AP U.S. History
Next year I will be in the IB Program + a little AP
All of my classes have always been at least honors.</p>

<p>My PLAN to ACT is 34.
My PSAT To SAT 1600 is 1360.
My PSAT to SAT 2400 is 1970.</p>

<p>Soccer (Not Varsity)
Track (Not Varsity)
Model UN
Will have 150 hours of community service (for IB)
All School Math Award Freshman Year
(Will have more)</p>

<p>Again, I know this is a tiny bit early but could you please, please tell me if I'm on track, or if I should be looking at a different range or schools. Any help is appreciated and I can answer any questions. Also any suggestions or tips?
Thank you everyone!</p>

<p>I think all of those schools are considered reaches for everyone, so you might want to add a few more mid-range schools (for your abilities) and perhaps one definite safety to your list.</p>

<p>It looks like you're definitely interested in engineering/science, what in particular do you want to do?</p>

<p>At this point I'm not really sure what mid-range schools are...</p>

<p>Duke?
Cornell?</p>

<p>I bet those are reaches as well. Do you have any suggestions?
And are my original colleges extreme reaches or do I have a chance?</p>

<p>My safety is CU Boulder.</p>

<p>Duke and Cornell are top schools. Try looking at Virginia Tech's engineering program.</p>

<p>You're lacking in extracurriculars and your SAT scores/ACT scores won't cut it at the top schools on your list. Unless you improve your SAT/ACT from what you got on your PSAT and PLAN and improve your extracurriculars, then I honestly don't think you have a shot at any of those except for CO School of Mines and (possibly?--I don't know anything about it) Olin. You need to add some more realistic safeties and matches to your list.</p>

<p>Try looking at the following schools--all of them are excellent places where you'd have a better chance of admission:</p>

<p>University of Rochester
Emory
Rice
Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute
UMichigan</p>

<p>I don't mean to sound harsh. I'm just trying to give you the most constructive help I can.</p>

<p>Thank you for your advice. But could you be being a little too harsh?</p>

<p>Sure my PSAT were not that good (I had a broken collar bone) but I think my PLAN scores are definitely in the range of those colleges. Sure I'm not going to MIT but some of the others are possible right?</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure that I will get into the CO School of Mines easy, and I will definitely check out the colleges that you listed.</p>

<p>Or am I just being extremely optimistic?</p>

<p>Wow. I can't believe I didn't notice the ACT score. My bad! That's a great score and it puts you in range for a lot of those schools. I would submit that and if you don't improve on the SAT, just focus on the ACT.</p>

<p>However, your Extracurriculars are a bit lacking. Try to improve those during the summer.</p>

<p>Still consider the schools I mentioned. A lot of those are matches/safeties for you.</p>

<p>I'd also recommend looking at Carnegie Mellon and Case Western.</p>

<p>CMU especially if you're interested in electrical or computer engineering or computer science.</p>

<p>I'd advise you to take a few ACT tests from Kaplan or Princeton Review, or the REAL ACT guide. Plan test scores are NOT accurate. At least for me. The science section on the plan is a joke, on the ACT it's probably 5x harder. I got a 28 on the plan test, yet the first time I took the ACTs I got a 26</p>

<p>Wow, thank you, that is really good advice and I had no idea.
I will definitely do that.</p>

<p>Thank you everyone for your help.</p>