<p>Okay, if you are a Libyan American with good EC's, valedictorian, and slightly better test scores than you already have, you are going to have a easier than average time getting into the top schools. Your low-income status will make many of these a financial reality, since you can apply and likely go to most of these for free. </p>
<p>I would go through this site, and several others, looking for topics and sites ranking schools for your particular planned major. I would also try not to just base it one which school has the best economics/business department, but whatever school you see yourself fitting into the student population the best. Chances are that you will change your major (80% of college students do), so you don't want to base your pick of school just on the economics/business department. We can recommend schools all day on here, but you need to think about where you would be the happiest for the next four years of your life. Sounds like it would be Stanford for you, so I would also recommend some of the UC's, a couple ivies, Duke, and make sure you put a fallback school on your list in case you don't get in, or none of them become financially feasible to attend.</p>
<p>To start, I would go on princetonreview.com, fill out their little questionnaire thingy, and see what schools they recommend for you. The results may or may not be accurate, but it will give you a fairly good starting point in your search. You could then request brochures and stuff, look up reviews of the school or videos of it (Youtube has good videos of a lot of schools), and figure out which ones to apply to. Because of your low-income, it might or might not be a good idea to visit, so I might save visiting until after you get into the schools, as by then you should have narrowed down your search even more. </p>
<p>My only other suggestion would be to try to get some kind of leadership position to put on your application. Maybe start an economics club or get a leadership position in NHS. You already seem to be pretty passionate about economics, and you have a decent amount of volunteering. And if you have one, put down on your application any sort of job that you might have had.</p>
<p>I know it may be annoying to be so uncertain about where you are going to go since in a little over a year you will have picked where you will be spending the next four years of your life, but I'm sure you will pick somewhere good. Be patient and weigh out all your options very carefully. Don't be afraid to apply to too many schools either.</p>