As of now I have taken the ACT and SAT and am going to be taking 3 SAT II’s (Physics, Math II, and U.S. History) this June. The only score I have received so far is my ACT (Composite 33, English 33, Math 34, Science 35, Reading 30, Writing 8, Combined English/Writing 30). I feel fairly confident about my SAT, but not as much as my ACT’s. They were longer and a bit more rigorous to me, and I similarly feel like the Reading section was NOT my strong suit, although I was very confident of my Math skills on BOTH the ACT and the SAT. I am very interested in applying to several top tier schools, as I am interested in going into the field of physics, so far the top half of my list includes schools like: Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Cornell, Princeton, UC Berkeley, U Michigan, U Texas.
One of the Seniors this year was accepted to many of those top schools, (Stanford, MIT, and Harvard to be exact), with the same ACT score (33) as me. However, the problem is that his GPA was a 95-96 (4.0) while mine is a 91-92 (3.7 ish). I feel like I have the same potential as this kid, and although we both took the hardest courses possible (All AP’s if not Honors), but I killed my GPA taking Latin as a language, getting an 85 average. I have maintained solid 95 (4.0) in all of my math courses and science courses, which were all Honors or AP, and am also taking the hardest possible, most full Senior year schedule full of math and science based classes (2 Sciences: Robotics and AP Physics II) (2 Maths: AP Calc AB, AP Statistics), and a possibility of working AP Physics C into my schedule as well.
Now, I am in a very mid-range area for these school. I could have better grades but I could have worse as I am right now.
However, I was wondering if anybody has any tips for what i can do starting now, over the summer, and fall/winter of my Senior year to really boost my application. Nothing too big, but maybe little things I can do. I am already full on EC’s, so that is not to worry about, but I am hoping for something I can really do outside of my school and academics (Not involving studying for tests or just ding good in school, I already have a handle on this)
So, any tips would be treaty appreciated, please help me out. And if you can, let me know what you think my chances of getting into one of these schools is as of right now…Thank you!
- James