Which universities sound right for me to aim for? What should be my reach, target and safety?

I'm a freshman too. There's not a crazy amount you can do in 9th grade to strengthen your college applications, but I have a few ideas.

1. If your school has a Leadership program, try to join and take on as many opportunities to help as possible.

2. Also join volunteer clubs such as Key Club or UNICEF (not only do you get extra hours, but being involved in a volunteer club is good for college apps).

3. Try to join math/science clubs such as Mu Alpha Theta and National Science Honors Society.

4. Take UC Berkeley ATDP or Summer Enrichment courses at your local college over the summer. Doing this will let you finish certain required courses over the summer, allowing you to take more advanced courses next year.

5. If your school lets you get PE credits for every sport you play, you can play a whole bunch of sports and hopefully ask for your counselor to waive your PE requirements, thus letting you take more APs in their place. (I play basketball too, and sometimes I want to focus all of my energy on that, but you might have to branch out a little bit and play some less competitive sports for credits.)

Here are some extra pointers:

-To my knowledge, top universities prefer APs over Honors, even though both are great.

-Universities like athletes with good grades, even if you're not applying to a D1 school. They have great fit, meaning they think you are probably more "right" for the school than you would be if you didn't play sports.

-This is kind of a no-brainer, but you should focus on taking courses that align with the major you want to pick. For example, if you want to major in Engineering, try and take AP Calculus AB your junior year and AP Calculus BC your senior year. (It's also better to take them in this order because BC is more difficult than AB. Furthermore, when you apply to colleges they're only going to see that you're enrolled in BC and they won't see your grades, whereas they will see your grades in AB.)

-Go into classes (whether you like the class or not) with a goal: to get an A. Why? If your grades are better than other people's, then your class rank increases. A high class rank (combined with being a competitive person) looks good to colleges. Even if you can't wait to get out of there, just keep working hard at it -- don't slack. It'll all pay off soon.

-Start considering your major if you haven't already.

Good luck!

Duke, Williams, or Cornell