<p>I am a female junior in high school trying to decide what range of colleges would be best suited for me. I’ve always had the Ivy dream, but I’m not sure if it’s too high to shoot for me? </p>
<p>I go to a residential magnet school that focuses on math and science
Taking multivariable calculus and combinatorics and game theory. Next year I plan to take number theory, modeling with matrices, mathematical modeling…
Not too many APs, but I should have AB Calc AB, APES, AP Chem, AP Phys C, and maybe one of the AP English exams.
In 2009, I got a 750 on math SAT and a 1990 total. But I’ve taken a few practice tests more recently and am getting scores more around 2100 with 800s in Math. No ACT yet.
Varsity softball and swim
I’ll have hundreds of volunteer hours at my local hospital (5 years), I worked with recent spanish-speaking immigrants in my community and helped them adjust, and I volunteered at a local planetarium
I plan to do either Michigan Math and Science Scholars or SMaRT camp this summer.
Next year, I’ll be doing a mentorship program in astrophysics under a professor at a university
Freshman Class president
Next year, i will be either a Student Ambassador or a Physics Teacher’s Assistant
No experience in competition math. I may do a few competitions this year or next but i’ve never done it before so I probably won’t get any awards. </p>
<p>Tell me what you think. These are my major accomplishments, there are some other little awards and clubs I’ll mention on my apps. But my main interests as you can probably tell are math, physics, astrophysics, and engineering. Thanks guys!</p>
<p>Forgot to say grades… Number 1 at my home high school (9th and 10th grade) and unranked at my new school. I got all As at my home HS and all As with a few +Bs at the new one.</p>
<p>Will you be taking Calc BC senior year? What is your state of residency (Mich)?</p>
<p>Based on your current stats and resume, I think more realistic chances may come at a lower-tiered Ivy school like Cornell or some very selective non-Ivy schools such as Duke, Rice, JHU, Northwestern, WashUStL, CMU, Michigan, or USC-- all with good engineering programs. Once you have a good match and safety school selected, including a financial match and safety (one that your parents can afford, if you don’t receive any aid), then take a stab at some of the reach schools I mentioned above. Being a female engineering applicant will give you nice little bump, but you will still need to raise those test scores and probably raise your GPA (“few B’s…”) if you want to have a better shot at an MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Princeton, etc. I would also look at some of the smaller schools that have great engineering programs like Harvery Mudd and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Bucknell. You may want to try taking the ACT and much depends on your SAT II scores as well. Good luck!</p>
<p>You can get in almost anywhere with those numbers for math, physics, or engineerng including MIT. Many here will say that you can’t get in to such schools but MIT has nearly a 20% accept rate for females according to the 09-10 common data set
[MIT</a> Office of the Provost, Institutional Research](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research)</p>
<p>The biggest thing I see on your stats is that you are taking math well beyond calc. More or less pick where you want to go that has the degree you want (though I think you will fall short at schools such as Harvard that can make up for the lack of females in the Math/Science/Physics/Engineering fields with those in other majors). It may be worth it to see how you fair at competition math.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I live in North Carolina by the way. One thing I consider when thinking about the upper level schools is how I compare with other students in my school. There are probably 15 or 20 others juniors in math just as high as I am and are also doing research in math or science. This year I know of 5 people who were accepted to MIT and several others who were deferred. My concern is sticking out among these kids. Though my high coursework looks good from most other high schools, it’s not necessarily out of the ordinary at my own school. Just something else to consider…</p>