<p>until you prep prep prep retake retake your SAT and do two ACT’s you are NOT going to UCSD or UCLA or Berkeley. Buy the bookstore Princton and McGraw Hill prep books, start with Math Lev 2, 9 practice tests, do every page religiously do their test and keep doing it from her till you can do no more for your CAL apps till you get at least a 740 - it’s thru precal /trig in ways you can’t imagine and will seriously raise your math ACT SAT scores (after doing so my son got a 750 SAT II Math 2 and 34 ACT Math) do summer community college calculus course this summer, and if you ace it do the second semeseter which is the BC, then don’t do high school BC which allows graphing calculator and many engineer tests classes do not. then if you really want SD, LA, CAL you do senior year multivariable at the college , then linear A. I guarnatee, if you do this with your scores and math, you’ll go where u want. Your vocab sucks. Buy Renee Mazar’s “Not Too Scary Vocab” on 7 CD’s paly them inthe car over an over till you can pause each word and spell them and say def. and then get SAT ACT prep books and learn more. the books are only $20 to $30 a piece. Forget AP psychology so you have all fall and summer to prep for these critical tests, you need at least two Subject exams, SAT II’s do MathLevel 2 and some other you are good at. chem, eng, bio, physics, something. you need 700 min scores. prep. prep prep. practice. Your high scores, not your ap pschology will get you in. you should have been doing this last year. This summer work on essays - go to common app and start reading the questions incase you decide toapply to a private - potential full ride if your parents have less than $65K/year and it helps if you’re a desired minority. The best one to be is Native American, cause they’ve only got about 1% getting into top schools. FYI: if you go back far enough to the soupy sea we all came from ,then somewhere Native Americans, or later were Asian (Bearing Sea crossing), so if you’re Asian, change your high school record to Native American. and welcome Harvard, Princeton, what ever. I have a friend here, whose kid is smart,but doesn’t test well, only a 29 ACT, no SAT (or one admitted to me) and he’s 64th Cherokee, looks Northern Blonde Blue Italian but wrote it on Common apps (didn’t apply to UC - wanting East Coast fullrides) and it worked: huge fin aid package from Case Western in ohio and a decent offer from Carnegie Mellon U in Pittsburgh. 29 is pretty low.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I believe in diversity, especially for Blacks who’ve been royally screwed and even more so with penuary after Lincoln supposedly freed them. but the Native Americans aren’t using their spots. seriously, the big thing now is diverisity but these ivies areonly admitting 6% to 8% other than white each race. Get your two letters of rec figuredout this spring and let the teachers know. not so important for UC but for Common Ap it is. let you favorite ENG teacher know you would like her/him to edit your essay. you should have to do this. not write it ,but give feedback. get his lined up now before fall crunch. Too many public schools are so busy with their graduation rates and their stats that they neglect helping kids prep for college: ACT SAT, SAT II’s.</p>
<p>think about what you’re interested in and which are your top dream schools and go to their websites and look at the scores needed for credit for AP work for example if you’re not majoring in Engineering at UCSD you can take care of your physics with just a 3 on the AP, 3 for Art, 3 for Mandarin or what ever language. different for all majors and the colleges at UCSD, different for UCLA, different for CAL: cal wants 5’s. check it out. Micro and Macro is important for many majors and just to know about the world regardless. privates and publics take AP scores for these classes. UC will evaluate community college work for credit, you could do this this summer too, but your math is more important. macro and micro can take care of breadth often, and even privates take the APs for credits, but tehy often do not take anycollege work while in highschool for credit, maybe advanceds standing, but you’re doing rigor to get in, not for credit at private with endowments and big scholarships.</p>
<p>Everyone should do at least two SAT’s and two ACT’s. and subjects till scores over 700. get your math together this summer at cc and your scores between now and Nov. take tests every month. drop your ap psych to do so. with your crappy scores you are limited. the scores will get you where you want to go not the AP psych. If you had decent scores then yes, AP psych is great.But it’s your vocab, math, eng. read that will get you to the top UC’s: SD, LA, Berkeley. good luck.</p>