The guidance counselors at your “top boarding school” will be your best source. They are not working with you yet because it is too early. Trust the process. You are doing great and (especially being full pay) should have many fine college options.
FWIW you cannot count on getting an IB/portfolio mgmt job out of undergrad regardless of the college you attend. Best to broaden your horizons
On top of what you counselor recommends- I think it is always a good idea to get other opinions. Since finance and IB banking is your interest- I would assume Wharton, University of Pennsylvania is on your list as a Reach school. You should research which schools the IB banks recruit from- and then make sure you have a bunch of schools on your list that you have a good shot of getting in as well- like the business school at Indiana. You can put undergrad business schools into any college ranking list- not that the order is important but this gives you a good list of which schools have business schools for undergrad. Then compile a list of which schools excite you from that list.
Outside of academics, what are you looking for in a college? Big campus, small campus, urban or rural? What do you like to do in your leisure time? Are you interested in Greek Life or sports (as a participant or spectator)?
Have you done any research on your own? If so, what schools look interesting to you?
I am interested in Greek Life and Sports. These are the colleges I am looking at right now: IVY’s + Duke, Georgetown, UMICH, NYU, Notre Dame, Boston College, Emory, UT Austin,Bently, Babson, IU, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, SMU
I personally think you will likely be better off with less than 17.
I think one thing you need to consider is if you are interested in an undergrad business program, or not. There are pros and cons either way. You’ve got plenty of time to decide, but if you can visit some options of each type, that might be helpful.
You can narrow down your list based on your own preferences. Offhand here are some comments. Emory and NYU have no football or big time sports. Only Ivy schools with undergrad business schools are Penn and Cornell and no Ivy school is known for big time sports. Babson and Bentley don’t sound like they have the Greek Life/sports environment you seek. ND, BC, and Gtown have no sanctioned Greek Life.
I might also take the time to understand the difference between being an economics major and attending an undergrad business schools. The curriculum will be very different.
Again, best to take a breath and trust that the counselors at your school are expert in the college admission process.
Frankly, most of the experienced posters here are going to push back on the idea of having a “dream school” at all, and certainly not as a sophomore.
Of course it is fine if you have started looking at colleges and found a lot to like about Duke. I think what most of us would encourage you to do is view that as the beginning, not the end, of a process. You can reflect on what it is you like about Duke. You can, if possible, visit Duke. But you can also identify other colleges that have similar virtues to Duke, and explore, or in fact visit, some of those. You might find as you do this, your preferences and priorities evolve. For example, you may start seeing things at some colleges you would value that Duke does not have. That may lead you to still other colleges to explore.
By the time you are actually a senior applying to college, you will need to have an application list. But even that doesn’t have to be the end of the process. Once you have offers in hand, you can potentially revisit (or visit for the first time) some top contenders. Again, you might find that at the acceptance deadline, this process ends in a place you didn’t expect even a few months before when you were applying.
The basic point is you are (hopefully) a young person who is currently in a state of rapid development, evolution, and self-discovery. You also have plenty of time to explore and learn a lot more about the many different sorts of colleges you might choose. The idea you would already know where you will want to be is probably just not giving yourself enough credit for all the ways you can develop, and all the things you can learn, in the 2+ years between then and now.
You are now in your second semester as a sophomore, and things can change drastically over your Junior year. I recommend that you focus primarily on doing as a well as you can on the rest of your sophomore year, and then on your Junior year. You can come back in a year with test scores and grades from your second semester of your sophomore year and your first semester of your junior year, when people will be able to provide more useful feedback..
You will also likely change your focus in your ECs, and you may, or may not, have found internships (these are not easy to find for high school students).
Moreover, your interests and goals may also change in this time, so the colleges that interest you will change.
You seem to have a solid plan for high school, so you should, for the time being, focus on that.
Finally, you’re at a great school with great opportunities - focus on taking advantage of these. Don’t be so focused on “I NEED TO BE ACCEPTED TO A TOP COLLEGE” that you don’t enjoy your present life.
The PSAT that really matters is the one you will take fall of your junior year in HS. That is the one that matters for NM status, and can open the door to some colleges for admissions/merit aid. So…you want to repeat your fine earlier score in the fall.