<p>I'm a junior in high school and am starting to look into colleges. My top picks right now are: Georgetown, John Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, UNC (Chapel Hill), Duke, Notre Dame, and Vanderbuilt.
My profile:
ACT score: 34 (writing: 10)
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted: 4.26
Class rank: 9/277
All honors classes, two AP classes this year (AP Calc BC, AP Bio), and mostly AP classes next year
Extracurriculars: Key Club, Student Council, Art Club (president), National Honors Society, Spanish National Honors Society, job at a retirement home for a year, 150-200 hours of volunteering, journalism staff member (writer and feature editor)
Awards: Chinese speaking and writing award, Freshman Art Student of the year, many awards from a local art competition (a gold key, a silver key, and multiple honorable mentions), probably a National Merit Scholar (We just got our results from the PSAT back and I scored in the top three percent)
Special note: I was the founding president of our art club. Since my freshman year, I've worked with and helped my art teacher to establish the club (which does many art related volunteer events).
For my essay: I will likely talk about my love for languages and international culture (considering I want to major in international relations). My freshman year I was taking Chinese, but for a multitude of reasons I decided to take Spanish. In order to be able to take AP Spanish, I needed to study and test out of Spanish 1 and 2. Thus, in four months I learned two years of Spanish. I have recently started studying Chinese again and hope to be somewhat fluent by the time college comes so I can study abroad. (I've heard colleges like when you incorporate extracurriculars into your essay).
Next year, I hope to seek more positions in my extracurriculars. I also hope to take AP art, AP spanish, AP statistics, AP microeconomics, AP English, and AP physics or European history. (It's still tentative).
Any feedback will help. Thank you!</p>
<p>Sat score?</p>
<p>@pandax0x0 I haven’t taken it and I don’t think I will unless it’s necessary to apply to one of those schools. Do you know if it is? (I thought the ACT was enough.)</p>
<p>@jwaters: Congratulations on such stellar achievements throughout your first high school years. You’re entirely competitive for these uniformly excellent institutions. However – and, obviously, you are aware of this – probably 85 percent of your Class '20 competitors will essentially be equally outstanding. I would offer one suggestion, however: recommendations and essays frequently are decisive in moving ahead of the “distinguished pack.” Please work HARD to make yours superior. </p>
<p>@TopTier Any advice for writing a good essay or picking the best teacher for a recommendation?</p>
<p>At this point in the game you should know that scores and GPA are irrelevant because you’ve passed the checkpoint for them. Now its all on your essays, EC’s, recs, and “subjectives”</p>
<p>Your previous post though suggests you haven’t finished your essays or asked teacher for recs yet. All those schools applications are due Jan 1st. Did you already do them or are you just asking for advice?</p>
<p>@TsunamiSurf I’m just asking for advice. I won’t actually start until the end of this school year/beginning of next (I’m a junior).</p>
<p>@TsunamiSurf OP is a junior.</p>
<p>I think that you have great stats (VanderBILT btw). You have as good a chance, if not better, as anyone else in your applicant pool. Good luck! Chance back? 
<a href=“Chance me for Vassar I'll chance back :) - Vassar College - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vassar-college/1718961-chance-me-for-vassar-ill-chance-back-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Georgetown is always a wildcard considering its size, I have had friends accepted with 1900 SATs and rejected with 2380s. Your test scores give you a great shot everywhere, just make sure you have essays that communicate who you are as a person outside of test scores. Chance me <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1725477-chances-for-uva-umich-bc-unc-nd.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1725477-chances-for-uva-umich-bc-unc-nd.html#latest</a></p>
<p>@jwaters (#4): I’m very rushed this morning, but start really THINKING now about how (character, intellectual performance and potential, background experiences, goals, values, and more) you can make the admissions readers believe (and it’s very word constrained), “I really want this kid to attend HERE.” No gimmicks and no trite university-specific (e.g., I love Duke Basketball, etc.) themes or wasted words should be used. That’s what makes this extremely difficult . . . but it is also what separates the few really compelling essays from the many mundane ones. </p>