High School Freshman Needs Advice

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

GPA (unweighted):3.90 (as of freshman year)
Classes:
Freshman Year:Honors Chem, Honors Literature, Spanish, AP US Gov, Honors Language, AP CompGov, AP Calc AB
Sophmore Year: AP Chem, AP Lang, Honors Spanish, AP Euro, AP Econ, AP Calc BC, AP Comp Sci, Honors Bio
Junior Year: AP Bio, AP Physics 2, AP Spanish Lang, AP English Lit, Capstone Math, AP Stats, APUSH
Senior Year: AP Human Geo, Various Capstone classes

Current ECs:
Extracurriculars: President of NJHS, Recognized Debater, Model UN, Nationally recognized field hockey player, Programmer/Hacker at many hackathons

Leadership: Founder of a non-profit, Founder and president of a web design company, Founder of a teen powered online newspaper, Founder of Kiva Microfinance Club

Summer: Internship at local tech startup, VERY selective entrepreneurship camp at MIT (15% acceptance rate)

Standardized Test Scores :N/A (projecting to get 2300+ from a bunch of practice tests I have taken)

Race: Indian

My college list consists of the following: UC Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, UPenn (preferably Jerome Fisher), Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UChicago, Princeton, MIT, Georgia Tech, NYU Stern, UMich, Caltech, and as safeties, UCLA, ASU Barrett.

Intended Major: Computer Science and Economics/Finance

What do I need to work on? As a freshman, what should I focus on throughout high school? What are summer activites I should try to get under my belt? I absolutely love computer science and tech, as well as finance and polisci. Any critiques and feedback would be much appreciated :slight_smile:

2

You definitely have some impressive stats and everything here, but I think you need more/better safeties. I don’t think anybody is so well qualified that UCLA can be called a “safety”. Not to belittle you, because I think you definitely have a solid shot at getting in, but any school with an 18% acceptance rate is not a safety.

If you can handle that kind of schedule, great, but if you aren’t genuinely interested in all of those classes then you can (and I suggest you should) cut out some of them, which you can do while maintaining a rigorous course load. I can’t remember the number, but there’s basically a ceiling on how many AP classes matter. You’ve definitely gone over it, though. I want to say it’s around 9 but I can’t remember.

Just out of curiosity, why are you taking AP Human Geo as a senior? It’s generally considered a fluff AP, for freshman. Maybe it’s different at your school?

I’m not really qualified to comment on anything else, but since you seem to be really good at math you should check out AMC/AIME/USAMO/USACO stuff if you haven’t already.

3

Hey @DogsAndMath23! Thanks for your quick reply. I go to a really accelerated school which starts in 5th grade, and I basically have done all the pre-AP courses, leaving me with APs. But also at my school, AP exams “curve” students’ overall grades, incentivizing a heavy course load. And yes, AP Human Geo is definitely a fluff AP, which is the reason I am going to take it in senior year, so I am not overloaded with college apps, etc.