<p>So I am a Junior in HS now and am finishing out the application for the Residential Honors Program at USC. If you do not know, it is a program that accepts HS Juniors in lieu of their Senior year. </p>
<p>Anyways, I wanted to see (for my own edification) what you guys thought about my chances on getting in to the program. I mainly want to focus on my E.C's and things theat make me "different".</p>
<p>I have taken, thus far, the hardest course load that my school offers. 4 Honors classes and 1 AP class in my Sophomore year (Maximum for both): Honors Math, Honors Biology, Honors English, Honors History, AP Economics. In my Junior year, 3 Honors and 3 AP: AP Chemistry, AP Statistics, AP US History, Honors Math, Honors English, Honors Philosophy.</p>
<p>Got a 5 on Micro and Macro Economics exams, and I am still a Junior so nothing on the others.</p>
<p>The only B+ on my entire transcript is from m first semester in my Freshman year, in World History. All my other grades are A's and A-'s. In terms of GPA, my school is weird. Honors and AP classes are not worth much extra, and we do not rank at all. I go to a selective Private High School, and so they assume we are already "preselected". My GPA is definitely the top of my class (65 people). I can only think of maybe 1 other person with a higher GPA than me, but he has not taken the hard course load I have.</p>
<p>Anyways, I have also won awards. I won the Department Award for Science last year, and the Department Award for Philosophy last year as well. I am on like the dean's honor roll and have won some various good student awards. I also got 1st place on the American Math Competition at my school.</p>
<p>My E.C's are where I really feel like I have a good chance at this program.</p>
<p>I have tutored low-income and low-resource students both from my school and from a poor district near my school for 3 years.</p>
<p>I started a low-income tutoring program for kids form said district at my school's National Honors Society. (I am part of NHS)</p>
<p>I have created over 400 educational videos, much like those of KhanAcademy, for Physics, Math, History, and Biology. The teachers at my school in those subjects use them to teach the classes.</p>
<p>At my school we have a "Bridge" Program, which is a summer school for low-income 7th graders that have shown high potential in various areas of school. I taught at the program 2 summers in a row as a "high level" math teacher (taught Geometry and Algebra II).</p>
<p>I built a website for my school's "outreach program", which basically gives advice and tutoring services to, again, low income students. It is basically the main page for students from poorer districts, giving them college counseling advice, contact information for local tutors, study skills, and helpful info.</p>
<p>My proudest achievement is the company I started with a friend of mine. "PeerVids" is an educational resource for High School and College students, which basically compiles textbooks for various classes and has educational videos for each chapter in each book. therefore, you can watch videos directly related to your own textbook. Teachers also use the site to post their own videos, create their own online courses, and make playlists for test studying to assign to students. It wil be implemented in many schools around my area, and hopefully will expand. It is my main leadership E.C</p>
<p>I have over 500 hours of community service.</p>
<p>In terms of test scores, I do not know much because I am only a Junior. However, I do know that I need to send in standardized scores for this program. I am taking the SAT in like 5 days, which is early enough for application. I have been taking practice tests with a tutor for 3 years, and my score is consistently around 2300. As for my PSAT earlier this year, still have not found out. But I am sure it is above 215, which is above National Merit for my state (CA).</p>
<p>My teacher recs will be phenomenal for sure. </p>
<p>Thats it, thanks for making it this far ;). I also wanted to add that going to MIT or Stanford has been a huge dream of mine, so I may try to transfer after my first year at USC.</p>