<p>@bassguitar thanks for your input, it’s sometimes harder to be blunt about things like that and I really appreciate your honest opinion. The thing is everything on that list is something I wanted to do, and none of that- not signing up for harder classes, taking the ACT, doing internships, travelling or summer programs was initiated by my parents (not having gone to an American college, they admit they know pretty much nothing about what gets you into good colleges- or what the ACT is, for that matter). It was my idea to not just stay in my families’ house but explore the other countries so near by and not just stay sheltered between Germany and the US. We go to Germany (to stay with family) in the summer anyway, and the places I’ve gone to are 4-10 hours (drive) away from my families’ house. We mostly stay in friends’ houses or hostels and really tried to get a feel for what it’s like to live there, which is why I’ve actually drawn more experiences from travelling than people with typical cookie cutter hotel and tourist attraction vacations. But I will take your advice not to write about this if it is a common theme. I agree with you, Pre-calc is hard, harder than Calc. The reason I did Precalc over the summer was not to get ahead of everyone else in my class but because our school is notorious for having a not-so-good pre-calc H teacher and as my algebra 2H teacher saw me as someone who could easily learn things fast and on my own, she offered me to do it over the summer. I did not skip it; I learned everything that was learned in the class, did every homework problem the students in the class did, making sure I understood it, and took their final at the end of the summer. When I went into AB I had a more solid foundation than almost everyone else did because I had practically one day ago finished Pre-calc while everyone else had had three months of not doing math intensely. The interns (done with family members) and summer programs were all done because I personally asked, emailed, or called the people myself to arrange them or sign up because I am truly interested in seeing how it would be like to work in that career or go to that school (Could I imagine going to school in England? How is it like actually working as a doctor, not just studying biology?). I think it’s sad that so many kids out there let their parents start building their application for them in ninth grade, dumping loads of money into scattered, non-personal programs and monitering their every move to hope that their kid has a chance at Ivys but I am really not one of them. The fact that an admission officer may think that of me kind of scares me and your comment will definitely help me in writing my app so the “me” really comes through and not just a list of things that someone else planned as a way to get into college. This list is just a compilation of what I’ve done and enjoyed doing the past few years and it is frustrating that so many people manufacture such a list to the extent that now this is a disadvantage.</p>