<p>MCohen28: Stop trying to maintain super high A’s, and focus on exploring other things. You’re just setting yourself up to get knocked down really really hard if you come to MIT/Caltech (unless you are the rare diamond-in-the-rough IMO Gold Medalist type). You should spend the end of HS starting to broaden your horizons. If you’ve figured out you’re going into science, start reading voraciously about science, the history of science, etc in general. If you are going into something else, read about that. It’s a good time to pick up a lot of general knowledge and to build a context / big picture of what you are going to spend the next couple years studying.</p>