<p>I'm a sixteen-year-old high school junior graduating this May, and the application process has me a wee bit terrified.</p>
<p>Some background information: I attend a small (class size 60ish) K-12 lab school on the campus of a state university in semi-rural Tennessee. Up to sophomore year, my high school career has been fairly traditional, but this year I elected to take all but one of my courses via dual enrollment at the university. With ten hours each semester this year, plus eleven taken over the summer (aced everything except PE (?!)), I'll have fulfilled all the credit requirements for my high school, and I've made arrangements to graduate early.</p>
<p>This makes it a little bit hard to understand my chances, since so many of the usual litmus tests are early, late, moved, or n/a. It doesn't help that my high school's math and science department is... um... oh, I can't lie, it's a fetid screaming pit of misery and madness, and the single biggest reason I opted to take my sciences education elsewhere for the time being. A few possibly worrying factors:</p>
<ul>
<li>I'm only taking 1 AP out of the 6 the school offers. In fairness to myself, they're not practically available earlier than junior year, and all of them are... well, terrible, with the two exceptions being the US History I'm taking (doing well!) and English, which I could only have taken as a senior.</li>
<li>Class rank--it's crazy! For one thing, I don't know if I'm ranked with the juniors or the seniors, but it's kind of a crapshoot for everyone involved, due in no small part to the math department's admitted policy of assigning Bs and Cs to students who should be getting As "because that's an A in this class." Oh, and the top 10% is about six and a half people.</li>
<li>Having taken the PSAT last year and awaiting my results from this year, I think I did very well. (My scores would've qualified for National Merit last year, if only I hadn't been a sophomore...) My (admittedly hazy) understanding of the process is that I wouldn't really see what happens with the National Merit until next year, which is kind of a problem.</li>
<li>The SATIIs: I have not taken any. I understand the ACT is supposed to be an adequate substitute, but is it really?</li>
</ul>
<p>Now that I've written you all a novel of uncertainty and woe, here are my stats:</p>
<p>[ ] SAT: 2270 (800 Critical Reading, 670 Math, 800 Writing)
[ *] SAT IIs: n/a!
[ *] ACT: 33 (34 English, 33 Math, 34 Reading, 29 Science (mistimed myself))
[ *] GPA: 3.67 (agh!) as of the beginning of this scholastic year, *probably a 3.75 unweighted as of the end of this semester
[ *] Rank: Unknown, but definitely top 25%? (no, please, hide your awe)
[ *] Essay: Well-written, but quirky, and in an unusual format. I ran it by several people--some who I thought would "get" it and some who wouldn't--and the general response was promising. I felt my academic record wasn't really solid enough to risk playing it completely safe. (Though the Declaration of Independence motif should play pretty well at W&M, I'd think.)
[ *] Teacher Recs: The one I saw was glowing, the one I didn't was from a teacher who I know likes me a lot and knows me very well
[ *] Counselor Rec: Very nice, emphasized the initiative I took in my own education
[ *] Extracurriculars: French Club, Beta Club, SGA class representative
[ *] State or Country: Tennessee
[ *] Ethnicity: White
[ *] Gender: Female</p>
<p>I don't know. You're the experts, right? What do you think?</p>