Ask HN: How to get into a good university
I&#x27;m a 16 year old international student. Early admission happens at November. My goal is to get admitted at one of the top CS universities; MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and the likes.<p>I&#x27;ve won my continent&#x27;s space settlement design competition. I&#x27;m a winner of Google Code-In. I&#x27;ve freelanced as a designer and developer and have worked for over a year with a known technology blog among other clients. I head my school&#x27;s computer club.<p>My current plan is to get good a good score in the standardized tests, then start developing apps and webapps and hope that they get popular.<p>Will letters of recommendation from people like my old boss, or important figures from NASA&#x2F;Google help? What else can I do to strengthen my application?<p>- A confused kid