<p>My high school friend is a model working for an agency that’s considered in the top 10 of the world. She’s been on ads on busses and billboards in NYC, and is always in some magazine or another, and missed the first three weeks of our senior year to model in NYC fashion week. At one point she was also ranked in the top 5 models by Ford models.</p>
<p>This one kid in my school went on the college trip meant for Juniors in his freshmen year. That’s all I can think of.</p>
<p>Eh, I knew someone who was still in high school that attended my community college. I had a few math classes with him and he was an extremely bright kid. Smarter than the 12 year old kid in my Calculus III class. He was a very social guy who always told jokes. Got a pretty good looking girlfriend too. I wouldn’t say he was the most amazing applicant (2160 SAT score), but he did plenty outside of school. Nothing I’d say that makes him jump off the page. He still got into every single college he applied to (all the Ivies, CalTech, Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, MIT, Stanford, etc).</p>
<p>My brother’s graduating class had a piano prodigy. He’s won a bunch of gigantic awards, performed at Carnegie several times, etc. He performed a benefit concert for our performing arts department and raised several thousand. If I remember correctly, he was enrolled in the state university’s music program as a high school student, but I think he’s actually going to the Columbia-Julliard joint music program now. Talented guy, and from what I’ve heard pretty smart and nice as well.</p>
<p>@tangentline, the way I see it, SAT is nothing more than just a standardized test. A 2400 is impressive, but I’ve seen far more impressive feats performed from high school students (whether it is publishing research, performing lead violin in the city’s symphony, winning gold medals at major international competitions, etc.). Sure, it’s definitely important, but a 2400 won’t guarantee acceptance to the top schools.</p>
<p>The valedictorian at my school 4 years ago had his own business at the age of 16 and was making more money than his teachers throughout his Junior and Senior year. He is currently a Econ major at a great school and maintains a 4.0 He has a job already and with his own business on top of that he is already making 6 figures and he isn’t even done with undergrad yet.
Also 3 years ago the valedictorian got a 2300 on his SAT(highest in my schools history, we are an average lower middle class to middle class area public school) and got into Harvard, MIT, Yale, etc. He is currently at Harvard.
Two people at my school a year go to Ivy league schools, ten go to top 20 schools, etc. stuff like that is extreme in my area.</p>
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<p>Actually, I am impressed. I “know” how to take the test too. I practiced an immense amount (one test everyday a week before the test day itself). When you’re at the top of the range (2200-2400), one or two questions can make or break your ambition to get 2400. I lost 30 points in math for not answering one question. Getting 2400 is a bit of a crapshoot and one year you can get below 2300 and one year you might get 2400, but think about what it takes. The time aspect of the SATs is actually what trips people up most often, because the questions themselves are not challenging. </p>
<p>Besides good time management, do you know how fast these people have to think? And be right too? I had untreated ADHD and had no accommodation. I can think fast, but not accurately, so I admire people for what they are able to do. The proper testing techniques can only help you so much unless you practice SATs for a living. Nobody does that. There are only ~250-300 perfect scores in any given year, out of ~1.6mil test takers. If nothing else, I find that pretty impressive.</p>
<p>Is it a significant achievement? Down the line nobody will care. An achievement, nonetheless, like being the best juggler in the US or something. Nobody cares, but still impressive.</p>
<p>A graduate of the 2011 class at my school took 9 APs her senior year, 4 of which were self-studied. While doing this she also served as an aide to a then U.S. senator (Russ Feingold) and helped him campaign, all while being active in humanitarian causes (such as human trafficking awareness and prevention) and JSA. I know she got numerous awards and scholarships as well, and I’m pretty sure she got into all the Ivies she applied to, including Harvard. </p>
<p>She was also super nice, which is a plus.</p>
<p>A kid got a 44/45 on the AP Calculus BC multiple choice part. Not extreme by CC standards, but very good.</p>
<p>Most extreme student: USAMO, physics semifinalist, USNCO finalist
Second: USABO semifinalist, USNCO finalist, Research that may be published</p>
<p>One guy at my school tested out of freshman year and self-studied every AP test offered by the college board (besides the language ones) his sophomore and junior years. He got all 5’s and just a 4 on AP spanish and music theory… I think that is intense.</p>
<p>My graduating class had a girl who was in the National Spelling Bee, a girl graduating early to be an International Model (with like Vogue and Calvin Kline), and another girl going to Oxford. Not to mention others going to Ivies and Top Schools. It was pretty intense!</p>
<p>My school’s val seemed like just another straight-A Asian girl to give a valedictory speech the coming spring…until she got into Harvard.</p>
<p>is it enough if you have ONE extreme ec such as mentioned above( not pokemon), and a few other so so ecs’ such as like 60 hrs of volunteering and part of a club or two, maybe a leadership position. I am in this state right now, and would like to know how i fare for the UC’s or stanford</p>
<p>There was this one Asian kid at our school whose parents wanted him to study and they said, “If you no study then you become bum and bring dishonor to family”. He decided he didn’t want to study(EXTREME), went to a bunch of parties and later got a 2300 on the SAT. Later got into Stanford.</p>
<p>@JuanitaRebel Lol awesome.</p>
<p>I remember, the year I qualified for USAMO, there was a 4th grader (!) that also qualified. Now THAT’s extreme.</p>
<p>The idea is “extreme” not impressive–someone who has a 2390 is upset with that score (and I believe there is sort of a luck element in getting those last 10 points). But it’s a very impressive person that I have not said any of the achievements on purpose because some people like being humble and it can be embarrassing to have them here (I hope I didn’t give a person away).</p>
<p>This isn’t insane, but for a 7th grader…
In 7th grade, a kid in my class
- was a level 3 black belt in karate
- competed in piano recitals nationally
- qualified for duke tip (perfect math score)
- took algebra 2, and later calculus in 9th grade
- was on the JV basketball team </p>
<p>He was also as conceited as heck.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6400L using CC</p>
<p>The other side of the extreme spectrum:</p>
<p>There is a student who has a 0.3 GPA.</p>
<p>Also, we had a kid with a 210 on the CR section of the SAT(Sad, he’s a pretty nice guy too) . </p>
<p>A girl who took 7 SAT II and her highest score was a 700 on Math 2(Extremely conceited. She too them to say, “I took 7 SAT II’s” and everyone would gush and awe). </p>
<p>And this kid that started a 401k non-profit organization
That’s me (It’s not that extreme, but it makes me feel all happy inside) :D</p>
<p>A girl in my school is a nationally ranked tennis player (in the Top 20). I am on track to be a professional athlete. A couple kids are competitive cyclists. There are lots of entrepreneurs. One kid quit last year to pursue his business full-time - he had a half-million dollars in revenue last year and 4 employees. He started that business when he was 13 or 14 and I think he was almost 17 when he left school. A lot of kids pursue music, art, video game programming, book writing.</p>
<p>I should mention that this is not a typical college-prep school. This is a small democratic school with no classes. We are all free to pursue whatever interests us, so a fair number(most if not all) of students end up going down one path farther than we would if we were stuck in classrooms all day.</p>