<p>I'm a rising senior and I was feeling ok about applying to colleges next year, but after reading about some of the other students applying to these school, I think I'm out of my league. I plan to apply to MIT, Johns Hopkins, Rice, and Duke. I plan to major in biomedical engineering and I definitely want to study abroad. I'm from Illinois and go to a public high school.
Unweighted/ weighted GPA: 4.0/4.73
Class rank: 2/596
ACT: 33 composite, and I just retook it Saturday, so I do not have the results for the second test
SAT: 650 math, 630 writing, 620 cr (In my school, very few students take the sat and we are given no preparation whatsoever. I did the best I could to prep myself, but I will retake it in the fall)
SAT subject tests: I took chem and math II, and I don't have the scores yet, but had the same problem as with the sat. The math II was ok, but the chem was really bad and I'm not expecting a good score. I plan to retake these in the fall, too
Schedule:
Freshman year:
Honors English I
Spanish II honors
Honors geometry
Freshman PE & health
Honors world history
honors bio
Nutrition & foods
Sophomore year:
English II honors
Spanish III honors
Algebra II honors
Honors chemistry
AP world history (4)
Honors speech
Tech explorations & basic robotics
Sophomore pe
Junior year:
AP English language (4-5 guessing)
Spanish IV honors
Honors pre-calc
Honors physics
APUSH (4-5 guessing)
Culinary arts I
PE
Senior year:
AP English lit
Spanish V honors
AP calc BC
Anatomy & physiology
Advanced chemistry
Honors government & economics
AP euro
PE</p>
<p>ECs:
International club (treasurer junior year, president senior year)
Debate team/club (co-founder & co-captain)
Spanish national honor society (treasurer)
National honors society
Speech team</p>
<p>I also have a lot of volunteering hours, as I've been volunteering at a senior citizen home every other Friday since 8th grade for 1 1/2- 2 hours and I have various other volunteer hours (feed my starving children, share your soles, relay for life, etc). My mom went through a medical assistant course 3 years ago, but other than that, I'm the first one in my family to go to college. I'm a Caucasian female, and I'm basically coming from a single parent home. If there's anything else I can do to help get into one of these selective schools, please let me know!</p>
<p>@eflick most students do, but at my school this is the first year they’re offering BC and there’s about 10 of us skipping AB and going straight to BC from precalc
@TheJHUenthusiast so there’s no hope for me at MIT?</p>
<p>@TheJHUenthusiast OP has a 33 on the ACT. </p>
<p>OP, don’t retake the SAT. You would be wasting your time. Your ACT is already in the 99th percentile so it isn’t like getting it up to 2200 is gonna open up that many more doors for you that you have been knocking on with a 33 on your ACT</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats I was going to retake the SAT because I sent my score report to these schools with the free reports when I registered, so they already have a bad score. Should I just leave it because they received my ACT scores too, or should I still retake the SAT in November? (I’m retaking the subject tests in October)</p>
<p>I don’t want to be that guy, but I think everybody who’s commented so far has been lenient with your chances. The ACT score is very good, and your class rank is excellent, but the classes you are taking don’t seem to be the most challenging (although please let me know if I’m wrong; I very well may be). Also, it is hard to tell without SAT IIs. That being said:</p>
<p>MIT: very high reach
Johns Hopkins: high reach
Duke: high reach
Rice: mid reach</p>
<p>I’ve taken every AP class my school offers besides music theory and one other. I’ve also taken nearly every honors class. I took the hardest classes available and I have 3-8 hours of homework every night during the school year and homework all summer…</p>
<p>Never mind! You obviously seem to be very busy, and I was definitely wrong. Your chances are probably better than what I had originally posted then. Good luck!</p>
<p>I’m sure the admissions teams will be aware of your high school and be able to put you into an appropriate context based off of your transcript!</p>
<p>Ask your guidance counselor to talk about it, if the schools don’t get a lot of applicants from your school ( or these admission officers read through thousands of apps so they probably forget these details) (s)he should mention it.</p>