<p>Spamming your schedule with more and more AP classes is not the answer. Your application won’t be decided by one or two more APs. There are people applying with over twenty AP tests and their chances are not much better because of it. As long as you have a rigorous schedule for your school, that should be fine.</p>
<p>I would recommend taking the ACT the month after if you are unhappy with your SAT score and think that it doesn’t represent you accurately as a student.</p>
<p>Self-studying APs is also somewhat fruitless, for the reasons I gave above. And I would also recommend against emailing the admissions office just to say hi. They have a lot to deal with, and you want to demonstrate your interest in your “Why (Harvard or UPenn)” essay to the committee, not in a random email to whoever happens to be responding at the time.</p>