<p>Being a Valedictorian and scoring a 2400 on your SAT don’t mean that you will become a great leader (which is a huge part of what these schools are looking for). In fact, a lot of the time, those people who do become Valedictorian and score a 2400 on their SAT are just really well rounded. Being well lopsided can make your application stand out more. Now, that doesn’t mean throw your class rank and your SAT away; that does mean, do things that interest you and don’t just focus on school and the SAT.
I took college classes first semester of freshman year.
I was tired of being well rounded so I didn’t take them the next semester. And I continued high school without them so that I could focus on math and helping the community, which were more important to me than taking classes at college.
I did what I wanted to do and now I’m able to take classes at that college again (and it’s the last semester of junior year).
What’s funny is that I don’t think my SAT scores, Valedictorian, or the college classes helped me get into MIT; though those are what I was freaking out about when I pressed the submit button. Yeah, a 2200 is enough–though I was valedictorian. But I believe it was my love for math and helping others that got me in, because I had intrinsic motivation that moves me to work on those things regardless of what MIT or University X or Scholarship X or Person X thinks about it (consider this as PHP as doing this to a variable would not be good practice in many languages). And I got in.</p>
<p>I can see you being much like me, considering that you are active and you’re ahead. Maybe you should apply a year early too, but that really depends on your situation. (I literally lived in the middle of nowhere so I needed to get out early if I wanted to do what I want to do)</p>
<p>I hope this advice helped you.
Also, if you need help for the AMC’s, email me. <a href="mailto:shrig94@gmail.com">shrig94@gmail.com</a>.
I went from not knowing what an AMC was to making USAJMO in a year; it took some work, but it was the biggest life changing experience that I’ve had so far (paired with AwesomeMath).</p>