<p>Don’t worry (: You have three years to get there! Just stay focused, work hard in your classes, challenge yourself, and find extracurricular activities that you enjoy! You don’t need an expensive SAT tutor, just start taking practice tests early, and I’ve heard that the official Blue Book really helps. Read a lot! That’s a way to naturally help improve both your reading comprehension and writing, and you can even have fun while you do it, if you pick books that you enjoy. Also, start thinking about other schools. Stanford is a tough one to have as a dream school for even the 4.0UW/2400 kids, but it’s just one of MANY schools. As you find out about more, you may fall in love with other campuses, other programs.</p>