<p>I am currently a freshman at one of the most competative catholic high schools in my city and state, Chicago, Illinois. Since I was about 10, Stanford has been my dream school. I am extremely interested in technology, and Im sure that will not change throughout my four years of high school. I also play soccer, and am pretty athletic. My GPA as of now is around a 3.8. I am taking just about some of the hardest courses of any freshman at my school in years. Next year I will be taking 2 AP’s and 2 honors courses and plan to join clubs, as I have not done that this year, primarily due to soccer. I was wondering if any of you had any advice on how I should pursue my dream. Am I on the right track, do you have any tips? I know it is way early to even be thinking about this, but I want to make sure that I prepare myself in a good manner. :)</p>
<p>My AP’s next year: AP Latin 4 Vergil and AP US History.</p>
<p>My school: St. Ignatius College Prep - <a href=“http://www.ignatius.org%5B/url%5D”>www.ignatius.org</a></p>
<p>Follow your passions. Pick a few ECs. Stick with them. Achieve excellent recognition in those ECs (varsity letter, captain, founder, president, state medal, national medal, etc.) Have a very good academic record.</p>
<p>Also don’t worry too much about college admissions right now.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d call St. Ignatius one of the most competitive private schools in Chicago (von Steuben laid a pretty thorough beating on you guys in scholastic bowl) but that’s beside the point. It sounds like you should be fine as long as you remain true to your passions and strive to better yourself in academics. As with any elite university, I’d recommend competitions in whatever your strong suit is. Your desire to get in to Stanford will probably give you a pretty good shot.</p>
<p>“I’d recommend competitions in whatever your strong suit is.”
Yes, do that! And NOT the ‘only diocesan’ ones, lol - like the Catholic Schools AD, etc. Get your school involved in REAL competitions, like AMC, etc.</p>
<p>haha i agree with chibearsfan. there is no way ignatius is one of the best in the area. EVERYONE says their school is the best in the area! how should we guage this: rankings (arbitrary), state titles (which sports), reputation (from whos standpoint)… we cannot objectively pick which one is best. all i know is it is not ignatius (or deerfield for whoever posted that haha).<br>
i would say for academics: imsa-they might walk into a physics class and wallah theres the US Physics team.
overall: Young and NT are the longstanding favorites (one being city and one suburbia). i dont think stevenson is that far behind.
but yeah as a freshman, what basis do u hav to call ignatius the best</p>
<p>haha, New Trier’s girl’s soccer team is amazing. I live in Evanston, so there is a big rivalry with NT. Especially since they took the championship from us. ;)</p>
<p>I love how this has become an Illinois board. We’ve needed one. I dont like the Sun-Times rankings simply because it looks at averages rather than the quality of the top tier. Private schools are obviously going to have better averages simply because they are private, whereas if we look to which schools have the best and brightest top 5% of students, then we get a very different picture. I think that list needed Glenbrook North, Naperville North, Libertyville, Stevenson, and IMSA just to name a few. These are the powerhouses in academic competition almost across the board. They all have teams ranked in the top 15 in state in scholastic bowl, math team, WYSE, JETS, and a USAMO qualifier every year as well as many members on ARML and and other science olympiads (physics and chemistry). I don’t think Ignatius, or any city private school for that matter, could stand a chance against these public powerhouses.</p>
<p>It did list IMSA, and yes that is the best academically in the state. However, I feel that teenagers require the complete package, which includes a social life. I just don’t think that being locked away in Aurora studying all day is a good experience.<br>
GBN cannot be included with any good list…hazing…haha just kidding. john scheyer is really good. but, if anyone was at the edge last night, GBN hockey got raped by fenwick. NT beat out gbs in a close one. STATE TOMORROW at the UC! this will be the 8th year in a row that the title has gone to either NT or Fenwick–that is quite a stat.
I don’t like how the list gave ACT scores. NT had an average of 26 or something?? Compare that with the 1400 or so SAT avg!
Umm what else? I don’t really like to compare schools based on their results in academic extracurriculars because (being at one of these schools) I know a ton of kids (and am one) that do really well on standardized testing and would probably be decent on these teams, but would rather do something more fun (dont even tell me that math problems are fun…take MV and real analysis and then talk to me–but linalg is cool i suppose). i dont really know how else to compare the schools though…whatever
hows everyones brackets looking?</p>
<p>Hey man, math team problems are totally fun. And as for MV and real, probably not as fun but I’m hoping I go to college somewhere with a lot of smart students and profs that can somehow make it fun. As for brackets, ive got 42 pts on CC’s yahoo group, rank 11 of 50 or somethin. I picked Tech over Gonzaga but that’s the only real big feat of my second round, haha. It’s hardly a feat. Oh, Stevenson just won state for scholastic bowl, fixing them even more at the top of our list.</p>