<p>^ yeah, I’ve heard the same about Yale. Outside MIT and Harvard us pretty nice though. MIT’s in a nicer area than even Harvard.</p>
<p>I personally would never go to a school I’ve never been before. I think most of us on here will have enough choices to pick a school that we really click with. I just want to visit the campus beforehand. You can’t go to a school solely for academics, the vine you get from the campus is usually a part of your decision.</p>
<p>M favorite food is Gyro (the rice ones) and Chinese food.</p>
<p>Love those two.</p>
<p>Wow, quiznos, trader joes, applebee’s… so many restaurants. I’ve heard of a few, but i’ve always stuck to eating chinese food at restaurants (with the exception of a few occasions). Next time my family goes out to eat, i’ll try to convince them to try one of these places. And wow, reading all these posts about food is making me hungry; not to mention it is lunchtime right about now.</p>
<p>@sardony: Same! I’m a chinese-american as well, so i eat chinese food on a daily basis. Oh wow, i ALWAYS hear from my friends about how they dream of going to olive garden… it must really be fantastic.</p>
<p>As for the campus “feel”, this past spring break, my parents took me to boston to visit MIT and Harvard, and on the way back we also visited Yale and Princeton. So for me, I guess i’d visit whatever campus i can. I also read a few student reviews about colleges, and they give a pretty good view of how campus life is like. Plus, knowing some people who attend some of those universities is helpful as well.</p>
<p>@jullieanna: Academics or extracurricular wise? Or both? xD
Good luck, i think that starting/founding a club would be a really good experience; so i’m hoping to do that as well. My school has a physics club, which i joined last year, but i stopped being active midway because it was really disorganized. =/</p>
<p>Wow, you’re taking really challenging courses (AP calculus, nice!). I also have block schedule, and i love how i have an extra day to do hw (and not all my classes each day). Only problem is, this encourages my habit of procrastination. :P</p>
<p>I’m an Italian food lover! And thanks @tofugirl for your advice. I’d probably still be struggling with not eating meat if I wasn’t a “tofu girl” too!</p>
<p>I feel like no one is going to be a doctor anymore, because our parents want us to go in that direction and you know how rebellious we can be… Plus becomig a doctor takes a long time.</p>
<p>@upinflight I actually have block where I have 4 classes in the fall, then 4 in spring, that’s pretty cool, I haven’t heard about that form of block. And both, academic and extracurricular. And lucky! I got to spend a day at MIT, but my cousin and sis wanted to go to abercrombie to we had to drive PAST Harvard…my heart almost broke, lol.</p>
<p>@ itsraining: I still want to be a doctor, but yes, i really don’t like how long it’s going to take. Moreover, i have no clue what i’m interested in, since there are so many choices.</p>
<p>@itsraininghere and @tofugirl, I’m a vegetarian too! It’s so nice to find others. BTW, unc-chapel hill has awesome vegetarian options and a huge food court.
@upinflight, same about physics club. My school’s physics club fell apart, so that’s why I was thinking of re-creating physics club and making it better. I’m already doing that with science club :)</p>
<p>@julieanna: Oh wow, that’s interesting; i haven’t heard of your form of block either. </p>
<p>Well for academics:
4.0 GPA UW
Last year took all honors (except gym of course) since my school is strict and doesn’t allow any AP’s until soph, where you can only take AP NSL. I think Junior and Senior year has plenty of AP options (although my school advocates that we take the Magnet classes instead)</p>
<p>I took a practice SAT administered at the summer class my parents forced me to take, because several of my friends took the /actual/ SAT in 7th and 8th grade to see where they stand. Math: 790/800, CR: 660/800, Writing: 590/800. Evidently, my grammar sucks. 
Total was 2040/2400, so obviously have some work to do… [if only the 0 and the 4 would switch places]</p>
<p>I don’t think my school does rankings, so I don’t know exactly where i stand. I know i’m definitely not ranked first, and probably not even 10th either, because in freshman year i didn’t study much; all i was aiming for was straight A’s. Only in math (precalc) did I actually care about how high my A was, since i guess i was competitive in that subject. This year, hopefully things will be different.</p>
<p>As for EC’s last year i joined 3 clubs, 2 of which I gave up midway because they were disorganized or dull (Physics Club and Fine Arts). I stuck to debate, and i plan to keep debating throughout the rest of highschool. As aforementioned several pages back, I plan on reviving our school’s Tri-M Music Honor Society (although things are kind of unclear about it), try out for Tennis/XC (XC if i don’t make tennis), Robotics, and Envirothon. Big plans this year, big plans, haha. 
Also, i’ve been playing piano for 10 years now, and I participate in a lot of county/state/regional competitions. I didn’t practice much last year, so i’m trying to use this summer wisely and improve.</p>
<p>@ all vegetarians: Wow. I can’t live without meat. What caused you guys to become vegetarians? Was it the animal abuse/rights, family influence (or a custom), or do you do it for health purposes? I know one of my friends is a vegetarian for the third reason. :o</p>
<p>^ah… i hope i didn’t bore you guys with my weak list of credentials… lol.</p>
<p>Lol @ people who gets 2000+ SAT score in their freshmen year and think it’s a horrible score and needs more work to do… As you grow through the years in High School, it’ll grow anyway by itself.</p>
<p>julieannab- Oh, how cool! :)</p>
<p>@upinflight- I do it for health reasons But I also don’t want animals to be abused either.</p>
<p>@nothingto: Well what i meant by that phrase was i wasn’t satisfied just yet and i definitely did not want to come across as condescending or boisterous. But toward your second line, hopefully that is the case. (my mom was unhappy with the score and told me that people’s score don’t change much aka i’ll be stuck with a 2k for the rest of my highschool career <=which i believe is completely untrue, after going through several threads with people who improved significantly)</p>
<p>@upinflight, don’t worry, that’s not true, honestly I’ve improved my rather sad first sat score by 200+ points already, I wouldn’t worry about it much. 2000+ is awesome for freshmen. Great credentials so far And I do for moral reasons, but its easier for me because I’ve been a vegetarian all my life. Can’t miss what you’ve never had, though I have learned that meat is definitely an acquired taste and actually does nothing for me.
Thank god my school let freshmen take Ap geo this year. And what’s Ap NSL? And yeah, I hate the required courses. My school had 2 that I had to take, so I only have a 4.75 weighted but with my 2 college classes this summer and my honors online class, it’ll go up to a 5.0. It should be a 5.1 by end of sophomore. I got involved with DECA, but I wish I got into debate as well. I was in 4 or 5 clubs, but only really involved in 3.</p>
<p>@Upinflight, yay! Someone else was in pre-cal! I miss it already. Are you nervous at all about calculus? I did really well in pre-cal too, but Ive heard that other than trig, the two courses don’t have much in common.</p>
<p>Do any of you participate in Model UN?
I’m thinking of trying to establish one at school, cause it’s something I’d really love to participate in, but I don’t know how that would work out. Or maybe something like a Human Rights Awareness, since our rival school has a similar club and it seems like it’d be cool. Finding students to participate is another matter.</p>
<p>Also, are any of you involved with HI-Q/Knowledge Bowl?</p>
<p>^Franz </p>
<p>I LOVE Model UN. It’s quite fun. But the conferences aren’t really that serious. When I went to a MUN conference with around 3,000 people, it was mostly games. People didn’t take it that serious. It was usually a place to hang and chill.</p>
<p>@upinflight and julieannab: You guys are so lucky to have been able to visit those schools! Can you tell me your experiences with each college?</p>
<p>@nothingto: Do you have any advice for how to “sell” Model UN as a club idea? When schools starts up again, I’m going to start working on my proposal or whatever. I’m thinking of talking about the strong relationships built with other schools, and how it’s important to branch out. Also about political awareness.</p>
<p>On another note, as much as I am enjoying summer, I almost kind of wish school started soon – a lot of the summer programs I am interested in I only found out about in the past month or so. Needless to say, I’m slightly bored.</p>
<p>Well, political awareness, a taste of what the UN does and how it affects us worldwide, a pre-cursor to UN jobs, experience.</p>
<p>Ofcourse, communication skills are much more better. </p>
<p>[The</a> Educational Benefits of Model UN | Best Delegate](<a href=“http://bestdelegate.com/the-educational-benefits-of-model-un/]The”>The Educational Benefits of Model UN - Best Delegate Model United Nations)</p>