Help, please.....

<p>Hello, everyone on CC. I am a junior in high school and have been doing a search and research on colleges for the past month or two.Here are my stats so far:</p>

<p>G.P.A: 3.669 I know it really sucks. I'm trying my best to bring my grades up to some higher stats.</p>

<p>Courses: I have already taken AP U.S. History, and am currently taking honors and AP classes this year. </p>

<p>PSAT: I have low scores right now, so bare with me ( Reading: 520; Mathematics: 560; Writing 510) I know there terrible, but Ill try harder on the SAT and/or ACT.</p>

<p>Extracurricular: Here is where I know I fail. The only notable extracurricular I have taken are tennis and orchestra. I have a job after school(I work at Burger King) that I have to do and I have much time already taken up. Also, our school is not the best in funding at the moment( we may have to cut costs by firing some teachers; this means that AP classes can go from 20-30 people in classes an hour to 40-50. I'm so ****ed)</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:
A Honor Roll
Star Student in Human Medical Biology
Overall best student in French 2
Student of the trimester in French 3
(Not that much compared to most people, I know)</p>

<p>A little Bio: I am an African American who lives in Minnesota. My family is of low income( I live in single parent household with me, my mom, brother, and grandmother.) Also, I qualify for free lunch. The school I attend is not the worst, but in no way I would call it the best in academics( In sports, oh yeah, we rule My school doesn't have much clubs that I can join( maybe like less than 10 overall; not including sports). </p>

<p>One thing I have been trying to find are programs that could help me like upward bound. The problem is I am from a low income neighborhood and cant find alot of programs to get involved in. And I don't really want to go through the school because they don't have anything I'm interested in. </p>

<p>My overall goal is to get into a top school. I have been looking at top schools like Middlebury, Hamilton, and UChicago as well as lesser schools like Macalester, Lawrence, and Hendrix. </p>

<p>My question is if:
a. Does anyone know of national programs that I might be able to get into that DONT require money? Stuff that could help me develop leadership and other skills.
b. Do I have a shot at getting into any of my choices?</p>

<p>I don’t know about many of those schools, but UChicago is out of reach.</p>

<p>Please take time to look at the various forums offered on CC and post threads appropriately.</p>

<p>a. Go to the the Summer Programs forum, do not post, instead READ the information that is already posted. You can also go to the Resources sticky thread on the Hispanic Students forum, it has listings for summer programs targeted at URMs, several of which are free.</p>

<p>b. Post on the Chances forum.</p>