<p>Hello, I'm planning on majoring in physics in college. I'm currently in my junior year of high school, and I've been hard at work planning on where to go for college, and how to get there. Right now, I'm looking closely at Virginia Tech; I know a lot of physics majors prefer to go to a more prestigious school like Caltech, MIT, or Berkeley, and I will be applying to schools like those, but I don't think I can get quite that far.</p>
<p>Here is the information that I think is relevant here, please tell me if I left something out:</p>
<p>GPA (unweighted) is 3.92, and it has consistently been above 3.92 except for one term when it dropped to about 3.88 or so. While it's too early to tell for sure, I'm fairly confident that as long as I keep up with the increasing pressure, it should be at least 3.9. My rank is 16 out of 90, but it seems that the majority of the people ahead of me have been taking simple classes, while I've been challenging myself for the most part. Is this relevant?</p>
<p>ACT composite is 26, with a 27 in Math and English, a 25 in Science and Reading, and 24 on the writing portion. I took this late in my sophomore year without studying, and I had not taken several courses that would be useful, such as trigonometry, chemistry, and literature. I will probably take it again at least once, and possibly twice if I need to. As a side note, would it be recommended to take the SAT and subject tests as well? The ACT is heavily promoted here, and I haven't been given any advice related to the SAT.</p>
<p>AP courses aren't offered at my school at all, but by the time I graduate, I should have taken these advanced courses:
-Honors Spanish II
-Honors Spanish III
-Honors Spanish IV
-Honors Algebra II
-Advanced Geometry
-College Calculus
-Honors Composition and American Literature
-College Composition and Literature
-Honors College American History
-Honors Chemistry II
-College Physics Essentials
I feel like I've done well at picking challenging classes, but I know that when AP courses are offered they tend to be a great advantage.</p>
<p>In terms of extra curricular activities, I have been in FBLA and Speech, but only for one year each, and I wasn't very active in them. By the time I graduate, I will probably have been in Math Club and NHS for two years each. My volunteer experience will include well over 1000 hours by graduation, spread over the local Youth Center, the local science museum, live streaming sporting events, and serving concessions at sporting events among other occasional things. I have also taught myself a little bit of Russian and German in my free time, and do some coding which I also learned to do by myself. This was just for fun, but maybe it could help on an application. Any information on that would be nice as well.</p>
<p>I can't think of anything else that really needs to be said. I'm sorry if I bogged you down with details, I'm just really excited to learn more! If you can confirm or deny my feelings about getting into a college like Caltech or MIT, that would be helpful as well, but I'm mostly concerned with Virginia Tech at this point.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>