<p>There were people who said that they got 600s on Barron’s practice exams and 800s on the actual. I got 640-740 on Barron’s and 750 on the actual. :(</p>
<p>My advice to you would be to take this next week of winter break and go through Barron’s. Divide the lessons by seven, and tackle a certain number each day for the next seven days. The rest of the month, take practice tests (as many as you can find). I didn’t bother memorizing conics; since we’re allowed to keep stuff in our calculators, I just put the conic info into a program.</p>
<p>As for people who live near top-notch institutions, I’ve learned to not be jealous of them. More often than not, the ones who live near top-notch institutions have cutthroat competition. For example, if you live near CalTech or Stanford as a high school student, chances are many of your peers are also going to be doing research/taking advantage of opportunities. That detracts from your overall impressiveness when applying to college. I actually used to hate living in this place, but seeing as how it’s non-competitive, I am actually the only one in my area doing research. This allows me appear more impressive and, for programs that favor geographical AA (RSI, TASP), I have a higher chance of getting in.</p>
<p>What state do you live in (if you don’t mind saying)? I suppose it’s nice to live far away from a prestigious college and a specialized high school to minimize competition, but if you live too far away, the education wouldn’t be so great. Living in Montana, Alabama, Nebraska, Alaska, etc. would give you a small diversity flag next to your college app or any program you apply to, but it would also detract from your normal high school curriculum…</p>
<p>Living where I live definitely detracts from my HS quality, but I teach myself/rely on tutors for a majority of my stuff anyways, so it doesn’t matter that much for me.</p>
<p>I live in Mississippi. (Woo redneck ville)</p>
<p>Animefan, how specific do you want? I don’t want to go into too much detail for fear of plagiarism (sorry guys, but research is a cutthroat world) but I do work in cancer and diabetes.</p>
<p>I mean, it depends on what research you’re doing. If you’re doing CS work, you’ll be working primarily with computers and running stuff on said computers; if you’re doing biological/chemical work, you’ll be manipulating biological/chemical materials to suit your purposes.</p>
<p>@Team, It’s OK to talk about your project in some detail. It’s not as easy as you think for someone to copy your project or idea. What are the odds that another student finds a professor that is willing to guide the research of a high school student in his lab working on the same problem? Not very likely. Even if it is, let’s say someone copies your idea and comes up with a better solution, isn’t that what we all want? Competing with others will bring out the best in oneself. Competition also allows for inventions by someone who thinks outside the box. History of science has many examples of that. You are already competing with others in high school for grades and test scores and you are doing fine. Why can’t you do the same with research. A dying cancer patient could care less, if the cure is invented by Team or someone else. He/she just needs a cure. In research, public good outweighs personal gain.</p>
<p>I have no idea how to access them, I try going to the website but I can’t really find programs that are affordable or even there. CalTech does a lot for this private school called Poly that’s right next to it, I go to a public school maybe 15 minutes from CalTech.</p>
<p>My school holds the PSAT until sometime in January where they have a big student/parent night to go over stuff about PSAT and college. Ugh. I just want to see my scores</p>
<p>^Yes, there’s no other way but counselor. It won’t be posted online, so your counselor is probably bsing you to get you to wait until they want to give it back to you. There’s no other choice but to patiently wait until your counselor decides to give it back to you.</p>
<p>I’d probably just stare wistfully out my window while blaring that if my counselor decided to keep my PSAT scores from me until January (not joking)</p>