Top University

Do some trading? You could begin with a practice account to learn the ropes about the marketplace then when you are ready try to commit some actual money to it. If you have good returns it'll give you something to write about. I do some investing on the side and I've made some decent gains.

Otherwise, try a small business idea out. It could something as silly as selling keyrings. Anything that connects with your interests really.

Oh, UChicago is top notch for econ as well - my cousin goes there and says great things about it. It's constantly in the top 10 on the US league tables as well.

Also, having never been to Chicago, what's it like. I noticed it on the league table but I would be less keen on living there. The impression that I get is that it is cold!
Is it a nice place or is it dangerous. I heard that New Haven, Connecticut; where Yale is is dangerous, could you please elaborate?

Chicago is great. Very diverse. Lots to do. No less safe than London. The location where UofC is is pretty nice. Chicago is very cold during the winters but so is New Haven.
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I don't want to go to Yale. More Princeton Harvard or MIT, maybe UPenn. How does Chicago compare with these places?

I don't want to go to Yale. More Princeton Harvard or MIT, maybe UPenn. How does Chicago compare with these places?

Again for econ, it rivals Harvard and MIT.

What about the Liberal Arts Colleges or Stanford, Duke, Georgetown.

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Chicago is a particularly influential university for Economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics

I don't really understand what a liberal arts college is, could you please explain?

They are a smaller version of a university, mainly focused on teaching rather than research. There is a wide variety of LACs, ranging from the mini-Ivies to lesser known gems.

Some good ones for econ are: Williams College, Claremont McKenna College and Amherst College.

Thanks for this help Princepieman. I thought Harvard was classed as a liberal arts college, is this true? Also this type of university sounds a bit wishy-washy to me, does it affect the course much?

I don't really understand what a liberal arts college is, could you please explain?

Colleges tend to be smaller than universities. They are generally just as good if not better. They just aren't as widely known as they tend to be smaller. Private colleges also tend to offer more merit scholarships than big universities. Amherst is great.

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No problemo, I'm happy to help!

Nope, they are a research institution with numerous schools and colleges.

The top LACs are nowhere near "wishy-washy" that's like calling LSE and St. Andrews wishy-washy - which is certainly not true. Williams College actually has the Oxbridge style tutorial system and produces some of the most successful graduates in the world.

These schools are geared towards those seeking a more tailored education with a focus on undergraduates rather than research and postgrads. Believe me, the course will be just as rigorous at these top LACs as they would be elsewhere. Hell, it's just as hard to get into some of these places as it is to get into Ivies + Stanford and MIT - hence the term 'little ivies'.

I am going to do some volunteering ove the long summer I have ahead of me as well as maybe doing some practise for the SATs, I will go to the big book shop near my aunties in Florida when I go in the summer to get some practise books.
Any good suggestions for what extra curricular I should do, I have done DofE Bronze

Something that you like. Demonstrated commitment and dedication to a few causes is far more impressive than a lot of fluff hobbies.

What kind of things do you mean. I would do anything within reason if I knew that it would give me a much improved chance of getting in to one of these universities.
How about learning to code? would this help my case?

It's actually quite ambiguous and a lot of people argue that personal hobbies like writing and drawing etc should count as extracurricular activities and I would agree so long as you have something of substance to show for it. eg a bad extracurricular:

"I love to paint in my spare time, I've been doing it since I was six and my mum says I'm really good."

Whereas a great extracurricular:

"I love to paint in my spare time; I've helped run art club since I was six and recently one of my paintings won first place in a competition."

The second person has other people that can attest to his dedication (others at the art club) as well as an independent body that can attest to his actual talent. That's why clubs are the usual go-to because it's much easier to prove both of those things to 'legitimise' the extracurricular, as it were. It's very difficult to do that with isolated hobbies.

It doesn't sound like coding would be a particularly useful area to go down, unless you use those skills to make something of substance (like, an actual program that you use and give others to use, for example.)

So yeah, volunteering is great, as well as anything that rewards progress with tangible results. Like Duke of Edinburgh, it's worth pursuing silver and gold if you can because it shows that you kept going past bronze.

I am going to look into it a bit more later on. Seeing what others do may help. If I were to get perfect grades in all tests, would the ECs have less importance?

Nope. Most people applying to these schools will have perfect grades.

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