For high school seniors...

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Where all are you applying?
I'm going to apply to U Miami (Florida) Rochester Institute of Technology, and Brown here in the States. I'm also applying both to Edinburgh (whose admissions office has already assured me I will be accepted) and Cambridge, on the off-chance that I actually manage to get in.
Also, I'm applying to places like Harvard, Princeton, etc because my guidance counselor apparently wants the bragging rights for getting a kid into Harvard. No interest, as Harvard and Princeton have lousy biology departments, but oh well.
How 'bout everyone else?

i'm going to apply to palomar,miramar,or maric

Well when I was high school senior, I applied to George Mason Univ., James Madison Univ., and Univ. of Mary Washington. I was accepted by Mason and denied by Madison and Mary Washington. Easy choice to pick from for me lol.

If you are at or close to the top of your graduating class in terms of grades, have a ton of extra-curriculars, and good standardized test scores, you should be fine getting in most anywhere. Should.

When I applied to colleges, I applied to seven schools. Three seemed like a bit of a long-shot, three a guarantee.

My grades weren't phenomenal, but I had somewhere around a B average. I had "good" (above average, but not perfect) standardized test scores. I thought I had enough things to fill up the "outside of academics" portion.

I was accepted to one school.

It may sound silly, but it is always a good idea to apply to a bunch of schools. Better safe than sorry. Had I not applied to the one school that accepted me (I never even considered it until the college counselor suggested it, and they didn't even think of it as my fall-back....) I might not have been accepted to college...

Did the same thing with graduate schools, applied to 9, wasn't accepted by any. Trying to pad my resume a bit before trying that again.

Whats your GPA and ACT score?

I feel kinda sad that I didn't really take high school very seriously so I had to transfer from 2 different colleges before I finally got into the one I wanted.

Where he is, they may not use the ACT scores. We used the SATs, and I didn't even hear about ACTs until some of my online friends mentioned them. I wouldn't have even been able to take them (Locally, in any case) if I wanted to.

I'm going to graduate with roughly a 4.6 GPA (on a 4.0 scale) and my ACT was a 35. But, as Immortal mentioned, most of the places I'm applying prefer SAT. Which is cool, because I got a 2390 on that. The standardized tests don't mean anything in my opinion, but if colleges want to be impressed by some arbitrary number I send them, that works for me.

It is but one of many factors. Your GPA sounds pretty solid, as do your standardized test scores. Only two areas that remain to be addressed.

How are you in terms of extracurricular activities? Do any significant projects outside of the requirements of school? Any sort of research, or humanitarian work? Did you participate in any sports? Any clubs?

These things may not sound like they have a bearing on how well you could do academically, but many colleges want a well-rounded individual. Being adequately prepared and motivated for the academics portion of college is great, but they also want to see if you've done anything else with your life. (This won't be true for all colleges, but it can make the difference between a good applicant and a great applicant. )

How are you at writing the essays for the applications? Had anyone take a look at them, offer any pointers? Other than what has been mentioned already, this is the only item I can think of that would be left for them to consider, short of an interview with some faculty members or an admissions adviser. If you feel confident in your essays (last I knew, most every college required some sort of essay...but that was roughly six years ago) and you've gotten positive feedback, and you also have a few extracurriculars, it sounds like you have a pretty respectable, competitive application prepared.

That being said, even if your application is great, there's nothing you can do about anyone that has a "better" application in the eyes of the university. Better to be safe than sorry, and have at least one or two good fall-back schools in case nothing goes according to plan.

"Sports?" I've got varsity letters for chess team and academic team. Also, participation in Science Olympiad, Math League, and NHS. I've also volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters for the past two years. Plus, I am heavily involved in music. I think my lessons teacher still assumes that I intend to pursue an orchestral career on trombone. Yeah, every college seems to want a ton of essays. I'm fairly decent with essay writing if I have a good prompt, otherwise I tend to go blank. Right now I've got two "stock" essays that can be used for a variety of different prompts. I've done most essays I've needed to write on music for several years, now my experience with Asperger's is also an easy essay topic to hit. Fortunately all the essays I have to fill out look pretty reasonable. I am very confident I will be accepted at RIT and Miami, as I meet the requirements for either to guarantee me large amounts of scholarship money, so I doubt I would get rejected from the university as a whole. And Edinburgh's admissions system is extremely numbers-based, and they have already told me I will be accepted there.

Hah, that's fine. From the rest of what you wrote, sounds like you'll be fine. Sports are far from necessary, so long as you have done a lot of things beyond the required level of academics, and it sounds like you have.

Did you get a 4.0 unweighted?

YOU BETTER apply to Harvard, Cornell, MIT, Standford etc..... if you got grades and test scores like that.

Although it does not look like you did much outside of school, so that is going to hurt your application. The IVY league schools are going to look at students who excel both academically and socially; so doing one sport would have guaranteed 100% acceptance pretty much. Although you did get a Varsity Letter in the academics, but they don't give you a jacket for that.

I feel very hypocritical while writing this because I use to bully a kid who was exactly like you in high school.

I'm guessing that you spent a lot of time studying?

Oh hi, I'd like to give you some helpful information about activities outside of school that don't involve sports.

Music. Academic pursuits outside of the scope of high school. Volunteer work.
Would playing on a sports team help? Probably. To marginalize the other things, especially the volunteer work, is rather dumb.

Oh deer the sarcasm. Haha.

I was just merely mentioning that doing something like any type of sport(Soccer, Football, Ice Hockey, Tennis, Basketball, Anything) probably would have made the chances of him getting accepted nearly 100%.

He would have a 4.6 GPA, a 35 ACT, a 2390 SAT(Is that out of 2400?), and a sport(Whatever it was). Can't really compete against that.

But it's not like it really matters, he should get into any school that he applies to anyway.

And no, I don't really do extracurricular activities besides sports . Maybe I should do some kind of study group to increase my GPA, but I rather go and play Tennis or whack someone in the face. Heh.

Edit: I did do student government one year.

Kinda always had a high level of testosterone.

The key was the volunteer work, and that it wasn't simply a one time deal.

Well, last year's valedictorian from my high school got rejected from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale despite three years of varsity baseball. So adding one sport to the type of resume I'm sending probably wouldn't make a huge difference
Actually, I have never studied for anything. I've always just kinda showed up to class, and my memory took care of the rest. Though sometimes my grades drop a couple points when I don't do any of the busy-work. And no, I did not quite get a 4.0 unweighted. My transcript shows a B in gym.

In my opinion, the Ivy League schools are overrated. They wanted to keep the "average joes" out and the wealth elites in. Applied to somewhere where you are most comfortable at. In my case, George Mason University was 30 minutes from home and I know my family is close by if I need them to help me out.