I'm a freshman who has big dreams for college. What should I do between now and the time I apply to

Hi, I’m a freshman who hopes to get into a selective college such as Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, etc. I know that lumping these colleges into one category isn’t necessarily correct, but it is true that the accepted students excel in similar aspects.

My stats as of now are:

~3.98 Unweighted GPA due to a B in gym, all As otherwise

4.3 Weighted GPA (out of possible 4.5, AP and Honors = 4.5)

SAT I 2000 (score from 8th grade for CTY, plan to retake)

Honors Algebra II, Honors Chemistry, Honors Spanish II (Planning to take Honors English II, Honors US History II, Honors Spanish III, Honors Pre-Calculus, Honors Physics, and AP Computer Science sophomore year)

Ethnicity: Asian

Hooks, URM: None

Extracurricular Activities:

Violin (for last 5 years, 1st violinist in orchestra, most likely 1st chair by senior year, plan to audition for regional orchestra and partake in other competitions)

Computer Science (plan to start an app development club sophomore year and release apps to the market and design stuff to help our school)

Community Service (ran and took part in some food drives, helping the elderly, plan to do throughout high school)

Research (conducting and hopefully publishing some engineering research at a college close by this summer and throughout high school)

I also do some math competitions like AMC but I doubt I can get into USAMO or anything.

So what are some other things that can better increase my chances of getting into these selective colleges? I know not getting in isn’t the end of the world but it’s something I decided to aim for and it seems to be a good goal to have nonetheless.

Thank you!

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A better goal would be to excel academically in high school and find something you love doing that differentiates you from other applicants. Find something that you are passionate about and willing to dedicate lots of time to. Spend your high school years doing what you love and improving yourself in the process.

At the end of it all, you might get into one of your dream schools (on that note, I do think you need to look deeper at what you want in a school aside from its selectivity). But even if you don’t, at least you didn’t waste four years focused on the sole goal of getting in.