<p>I am a freshman at a highly competitive IB high school.
Deeply interested in Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering</p>
<p>Dream of getting into Cornell or Dartmouth Premed.
Order from safety to dream school: UW, Duke, JHU, Dartmouth, Cornell</p>
<p>ACT: 28 w/ writing (first try, will retake later)
GPA: 3.41 unweighted / 4.14 weighted (screwed up really bad and ended up with a bunch of B+s, taking hardest course load possible, including two APs)</p>
<p>ECs (current, probable):
-newspaper club member
-robotics club member
-order of arrow (leadership group in boy scouts)
-almost eagle scout (will certainly get by graduation)
-plan on getting several hundred community service hours at a childrens hospital</p>
<p>Hooks:
-first generation American
-from a remote region of Russia</p>
<p>I’m not an expert, but Duke, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, and Cornell are all pretty far out of range with those stats. But hey, what do you have to lose other than the application fees? I say go for it.</p>
<p>Grades Explanation: enrolled in a gifted program that requires 144 standard age score (99.8%ile or higher), thus accelerated and advanced classes, IB diplomma a year early, etc. I could easily get a 4.0 in a fairly average curriculum yet this is not what i’m talking about</p>
<p>Furthermore, I am a freshman and am not applying for college right now.
Please read the OP.</p>
<p>Just keep taking your hardest course load and keep trying to improve. Colleges look at improvement, and since you’re only a freshman you have time on your side.
But don’t get too stressed out, remember that you’re still only a freshman…</p>