u/Available_Channel991

I’m planning to take the sat in June and have been reviewing with Princeton and blue book practice exams. I have been scoring decently in those, but where can I find harder practice tests out there? Any websites? Book? Honestly any resources with significantly harder question than the real test. I know the question will be inaccurate on difficulty but I want to train myself at harder question so the real test feel normal. Thanks!!

Chance Me - UT (Informatics) EA

Hii! I'm a current junior wondering if I should even hope about getting into UT Ischool for informatics. The biggest issue is my rank is around 12 ish percent but any guidance would be helpful! (Yes, I did use AI)

Background: - Upper income, mixed (Mexican and Indian) from a competitive public high school in Texas

**Academic Summary**

**GPA:** 101.5 (Weighted)

**SAT** 1530

**Rigorous Coursework:** 10 AP Courses, 2 Dual Credit Courses

Rank -12 ish percent, planning to not report though

**Honors & Awards**

* **NCWIT National Honorable Mention**, and regional winner
* **CyberPatriot National Semifinalist**
* **3x TFA State Qualifier**
* **HAMUN ECOFIN Best Research Winner (State)**
* **CS State Winner**, 4th state and 1st regional
* **Ap scholar, NHS, Local Cs and debate comps**

**Extracurricular Activities- Not ordered in any way**

(I spent 2 summers in India for context)

**1. Computer Science Team – Officer & Lead Instructor**

* Designed and taught a CS curriculum for 20+ freshmen, mentored junior members in competitive programming.
* Selected as a state-level representative; led team to multiple local first-place wins.
* **Commitment:** 4 hrs/week, 40 weeks/year.

**2. Speech & Debate Team – Officer & Congress Lead**

* Revived the dormant Congressional Debate program, increasing active membership by 30% and leading the team to state qualification.
* Competed in TFA and NSDA circuits with multiple local championship titles.
* **Commitment:** 10 hrs/week, 35 weeks/year.

**3. Districts Advisory Board Member**

* One of sub 50 students nominated by the Superintendent to advise on district-wide policy and student equity.
* Represented over 3000 campus students, providing a direct link between the student body of 80K and district leadership.

**4. National CS org (not mine)– Chapter and regional Lead**

* Founded/Led a chapter that provided Python programming foundations to 50+ underprivileged students.
* Managed a team of volunteer instructors and oversaw long-term student retention and curriculum development.

**5. App Development – Social Impact Project (India)**

* Engineered a custom grading and reporting app for rural schools in India to streamline administrative workflows.
* Successfully deployed the app to 100+ active users, improving grading efficiency for local educators.

**6. University Research Internship – Lab Assistant (India)**

* Secured a paid internship under a University Professor; performed data analysis and visualization for research.
* Authored technical summaries and generated complex graphs used in the lab’s ongoing projects.

**7. UT Austin Summer Academies – Participant (2x)**

* Selected for the highly competitive **Academy for All Machine Learning** and **Academy for Women in PC**.
* Completed intensive coursework in ML algorithms and advanced computing principles.

I do have some other ECs, but I don't think they are as important.

**Rec Letters**

I asked my CS and Debate teacher already. I think the debate one will be good as I'm an officer and one of 3 from the whole team to qualify for state. CS I'm not so sure about but her rec did help me win NCWIT.

Any guidance will be helpful! Thanks!