Ammelanoleuca
I know that UC apps are done with, but I'm a golden bear! I'm actually in a recruitment/retention group that's under the university, and wish I'd seen this sooner! We have a free overnight program in November, and another one in Spring if you want to shadow college students (and yes, you can still apply to the spring one even though apps are over and done with). I'm also in one of engineering groups, so feel free to PM me if you have any questions! My cousin also went to Carnegie Mellon...so maybe I could ask her if you want to know anything about them ?? :/ (I don't really talk to her much)
Since you are applying to some of the top schools, I'm assuming you plan to attend them through undergrad rather than do community college then transfer...so I'd say do what my old floor mate did her last semester of high school and apply to a ton of scholarships and (apparently, she applied to nearly 100, and they helped her a lot!). Also, don't be afraid to try for the bigger more competitive ones, like Gates, because, well, you never know unless you try. Good luck! 
(also...I took some community college classes during high school, my spring admit room mate also took cc classes before she started at Cal, and one of my engineering friends took the chem requirement over the summer at a community college. Berkeley gen chem is REALLY stressful, since all premeds and engineers as well as other science majors have to take it, and for her putting it off until summer worked out a lot better-and cheaper...much less $ than the physics class I had to take over the summer because I needed to get the class from Berkeley...so even if you are planning to do all 4 years at a university, like PinkWeeds says, community college doesn't hurt)
Posts by Ammelanoleuca
which editor do you normally use? Windows movie maker lets you do all that, but so does imovie (but imovie looks much better in he end)...some of the features of WWM is just in weird places and hard to find >_< but it's usable
AGREED! There's one person who's been posting quite often and they're getting a bunch of likes, but then quite a few of the projects are copycats and they even cropped out the original watermarks on the pictures D:< (and they've had to remove some)...and if you go to their linked website it's a crafts store... O.o
I think I have the same problem as you...most people always tell me "oh, it's a phase" or "oh, I was really quiet back ____", and they're the most outgoing person in the room x__x
I have many of the symptoms for selective mutism, but I suppose I'm trying to overcome it by opening up to small groups of people ("safe space, brave space" type groups especially ), and I've been getting a bit better with talking to strangers...there's still situations where I meet people and have no clue how to act around them and end up just really socially awkward. I also tend to not be able to speak with older family members for some reason...
I tend to be able to speak out if it's involving something I'm passionate about...for an internship last year I had to help lead a meeting, which was fine, except when I had to call the room to attention it was like "ack!?!?!" because I wasn't able to bring myself to yell over everyone....so, still working on it
...but Hi! Let's get to a comfortable point in terms of outgoing-ness together!
...I thought Korean ages were adding one to the "international" age, or something like that since it's considered as 1 during the age most other people consider as 0 (or count by months)....but either way, it doesn't matter how old you are when you get your ears pierced. I think I was slightly younger than you when I first got my ears pierced at a mall (which I had no problems afterwards with)...but I only have one piercing for each ear. My friend, who has multiple piercings, goes to a tattoo/piercing store. My parents made sure to get gold earrings even though they were more expensive to avoid infections.
edit: I believe they were gold plated or something 
I was only 10 so couldn't really remember. They were just really persistent in not getting cheap metal.