I am currently entering my sophomore year of High School, and my summer will be ending. I am going into the year with high hopes I will get straight A's. I wish to graduate from high school and be accepted into at least 1 ivy league, and if not, then one of the most prestigious colleges. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Columbia, Cambridge, Cornell, Brown, Oxford, you name it. I've been in the honor roll my entire life, but it's just my freshman year I believe might screw me. I had all A's, except for 1 class. It was an honors class, and I got an 89. I got a 100 on the final exam, but the teacher wouldn't help me and bump it up. I Just completed an online over summer course of algebra 2 honors, so my sophomore year I will be taking pre calc. I got an A in the summer course, so I hope that will compensate for my shitty 89%. I will never make the mistake of having a B again, and can promise I will get Straight A's throughout the years. I aim very very high as to dream I will someday get a perfect SAT score, and have also worked on extra curricular activities. I am the President of the student council and hope to fund-raise a lot. I also volunteer at the library over the summer.
Overall, it's just the 1 B i received that worries me. I guess I am afraid of the rumors how if you get 1 B you can't get into Yale. Still, I can shoot for Harvard or Princeton. My Spanish teacher's son received a 2400 on his SAT's, and is currently attending Yale Law. I asked my teacher for advice, and he said "character". Still, i prefer credentials on paper.
In summation, if I continue the path I'm on, and achieve what I wish for, will that be good enough? What do I need to change? Btw if I were to speak now I would say I would be going to college for law or business.
I think you are over-thinking this. One B (and an 89 is a B+ in my book), no matter what anybody tells you, will not kill your application. You’re only a sophomore. Use this time you have to build strong extracurriculars. It looks like you already have some good ones going for you. Build great relationships with your teachers now, so once application season comes senior year, you will have some good recommendations. Since you seem very proactive, I would recommend taking the ACT and SAT soon, and working toward your desired score.
Also, don’t just look at schools based on their name. There are plenty of schools out there (WUSTL, UChicago, etc.) with smaller names that will help you out just as much down the road.
Awesome, thank you, and sounds good. Yes I’ve heard that the big names aren’t always the best, but upon first glance, you’d prefer Yale over Duke. I also received a 2000 on my PSAT’s, which I find somewhat decent. I guess I’ve always preferred the top, but second will be good in this case if it’s another Ivy or top 20, haha. But yes, I understand I may overthink this. I’ve been told that a lot, especially by my teachers. But some may say that’s a good trait? I can dish out all of my perks but I’m not quite sure here is the best place to post a resume (I have a very high IQ- I believe between 145-152, as of age 2. Wondering if I should put that on a college essay). I know almost every teacher in my school and have a great relation with them, but I am also attending a public school. I am thinking about transferring to a private school my junior year, because 2 years of public highschool and 2 years of private schooling looks nice in my book. However I’m all for just credentials, and know I need to try my hardest at all times either way.
Wow. You are only a rising sophomore, but you already have put yourself on a path of extreme delusion. You need to stop obsessing about this process, and focus on living a fulfilling and exciting life.
There are so many statements in your 2 posts so far in this thread that just boggle the mind:
Wow. I’m speechless.
Stop trying so hard. You are doing well in school and you believe you have a great relationship with your teachers (though they seem to be trying to tell you something, and you won’t listen, so I wouldn’t be surprised if your recommendations aren’t quite what you expect). Just keep working at your academics, and go out and do some things that genuinely excite you. Try to live in the world instead of living inside your own head, and stop worrying about “credentials” on paper.
Whether you have a 145-152 IQ now is irrelevant. It’s what you’ve done with yourself that matters. What your IQ was at age 2 (a ridiculous age to measure IQ) is absurd.
A score of 2000 would be extremely good, especially given that the PSAT maximum score is 240. It would also be impossible. A score of 200, on the other hand, is good but not exceptional, and suggests that a perfect SAT score (which is irrelevant) is unlikely. A qualifying SAT score is probably well within your reach, however. Another B also will not spell the end of your life, and might actually be good for you.
Sigh. “Credentials” again. Listen to your Spanish teacher, and stop designing yourself on paper. Listen to your teachers, and stop trying to overthink things. There is no strategy that will guarantee admission to HYPSM, no matter how smart you may be. The best approach is to work hard and get good grades and test scores, work on being a good person (“character”, as your Spanish teacher put it - he’s trying to tell you something), and go out and do some interesting things at a high level. Right now you seem to be living in your head. It won’t work.
Try this:
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways
I think that if you continue on your current path that you will have a lot of disappointment ahead of you. You need to change your approach. You are applying head on, not sideways, and I suspect that you will run into a brick wall.
@renaissancedad Bravo! Excellent advice.
The Ivies reject about 75% of perfect scorers these days (Brown took just 23% of those scoring a 36 on the ACt last year), so your goal of getting a 2400 is certainly no golden ticket. I suspect that the perfect scorers that do get in also have great academics AND something else that made them interesting. Since there are not that many perfect scorers and most of them are getting rejected it’s clear that almost all of the kids at Ivy Leagues and other top schools have less than perfect scores so maybe your priorities are mixed up. While virtually all of the accepted kids had good grades in HS, the things that probably got them ithrough the door were a combination of their character and what they chose to do with their time outside of the classroom.
I would say to stop obsessing about your stats and credentials and just go out and find something (or things) that you love to do. You will enjoy HS a whole lot more and your anxiety level about every little lost point on an exam will decrease dramatically. If you end up doing the things you love exceptionally well, it will serve you far better in the admissions process, and in life, than trying to talk a teacher into changing an 89 into a 90.
Your IQ test as a two-year old is irrelevant and if were an admissions officer, I’d reject you on the spot just for mentioning it (jk, but actually not). I never even heard of such a test (unless you took a standard IQ test at age two and then I’d TRULY be impressed - but then you wouldn’t have gotten a 200 on the PSAT).
Normally, I end with saying Good Luck! and I’d be talking about getting into desired college(s). In your case, I will say it to mean getting your priorities straightened out and finding a path to enjoying HS rather than merely surviving it.
I’d like to say, first and foremost, thank you for a series of good laughs.
I don’t even need to touch on the points mentioned above, as I think the other posters did a pretty good job.
What makes you think grades and scores will let you gain admission to some of the best universities? You clearly have no understanding of the philosophies, specialities, and general cultures of these universities.
Precalc sophomore year is dead average at many top performing high schools, so nothing worth mentioning there.
There’s no way you can possibly hope to PROMISE all A’s for the rest of your years, it’s just not possible to be certain; in fact, it’s laughable.
You have a long long way to go, both as a student and as a person.
@PurePhysics, you have documented your considerable accomplishments on this site in detail, and you deserve tremendous credit for them. But as a rising high school senior, you may not yet have a monopoly on insight into the workings of these universities, and it seems that you may have a ways to go in terms of your own personal maturation.
Not everyone has your abilities. But those younger than us who are focused and giving their best effort shouldn’t be mocked, even if some of that effort may be mis-directed. And when you do eventually get to the “best universities”,as I’m sure you will, there may be some even more talented than you. There is always someone smarter. It’s not the most important thing in life.
^ Says the one who responded to a similar thread with “Get a life”?? I’m not seeing the distinction here.
Are you studying for the PSAT this fall? You should, because your 200 on the older one shows you have a good aptitude for those tests. Try to make the NMSF cutoff in your state - it won’t necessarily get you into Yale, but it will give you some great options for safety/match schools.
As for the rest of it… you are a prestige hunter, it seems. Nothing really wrong with that if that’s how you want to be and as long as you don’t base your entire high school career around an acceptance letter to college, and as long as you also apply to safety schools, but be warned that there is no magic score, GPA and EC combination that has been proven to get anyone into prestigious colleges. Higher the better, of course, in the stats arena, but besides that it varies by person. Often times you hear that the 2400/4.0 kid was rejected while the 2250/3.9 kid was accepted (check out the actual results thread(s) on CC.) Clearly there was far more to their applications than test scores and GPA. It is quite possible that you could be rejected by every elite college you apply to. You could also get in. No one is trying to tell you not to try on here, just realize that the competition is immense and that stats are not everything.
@bodangles, my advice to both the OP in this thread (a rising sophomore) and in the thread you mention (a rising freshman) was similar: don’t obsess about getting into a particular elite school or schools, don’t try and plan everything out assuming that it will get you in, and focus on leading a dynamic and passionate life. “Get a life” was perhaps blunt - I can probably plead guilty to the “snarky” charge - but it wasn’t meant to be demeaning or insulting to the poster in that thread, and I don’t think it was condescending. It was meant to be eminently practical: don’t focus so much on what it takes to get in, just go out and lead the kind of life that turns you on, and which as a side-effect will make you much more appealing to adcoms at elite schools.
I’m in my 50’s and I’ve attended multiple top universities at the undergraduate and graduate level, my siblings have attended others, and I’ve helped several kids get into still others, so I feel I have at least some limited ability to discuss what it takes to get into these schools. I think that’s different from a rising high school senior lecturing a rising high school sophomore and telling them that they have a long way to go. I don’t know any 15-17 year old who doesn’t have a long ways to go as a person. And saying “thank you for a good series of laughs” is not constructive, it merely mocks and tears down the OP. I can be blunt - “snarky”, if you prefer - but I try to do so in a constructive manner, and I sometimes deliberately choose to do so to make a point strongly, but not to tear town or deride the poster. Almost all the kids posting here put a huge amount of effort and aspirations into this process - sometimes too much - and I don’t think any deserve my disrespect.
The OP sounds like he is reasonably bright and doing well academically. If he can maintain that and get good test scores, and develop himself as a person and in his outside activities, there’s no reason that he can’t be a competitive applicant 2 years down the road. He has time. I think the things that he is focusing on - such as getting a perfect SAT or switching to a private school because it will “look good” - are mis-guided and won’t serve him well. But I’m not dismissing his potential as an applicant down the road.
I do apologize if my “snarkiness” offended you, or came across as condescending.
No offense taken by any means. Thank you all so much!