@linguaphiliac my daughter was accepted at both Brown and U of Chicago along with several other top 10 schools without taking a science or a full load her senior year. What they are looking for is who will be the best fit for that class for that year which as I say to most parents is a little bit of hard work but a ton of luck. In our school alone, I saw kids with better grades and SAT scores than my daughter not get into the exact same schools she did.