Advice on dating an older Girl!

Let me start by saying I am probably a bit younger than most on here, I am 16 and a junior in high school, but something has been eating away at me all weekend... let me first provide a little Backround information; I am in top 10% of my class academically, so other than classes juniors are required to take (2), I am in classes with mostly seniors, so a thought crossed my mind maybe I could pick up a senior, and well there is this one girl who is absolutely gorgeous, but I have not tried talking to her yet, because I wanted to get some insight on whether or not it would be worth it to even try to get to know her, because of the whole girls don't date other guys, the only thing i know about her is she is single and her name, got that from my neighbor who is a year older than me, when I confided this in him. I know that girls mature much faster than guys that is why they can date guys a few years older than them and still be around the same maturity level, anyways I feel I am rather mature for my age, I have 3 AP Classes, that I handle very well and my math class, which is Pre-Calc, so almost just like an AP class, sorry I digress, but the girl i mentioned earlier is in my AP US History class, and history just seems to come natural to me so I am more intelligent than probably everyone else in there, so I feel like I have that to my advantage, and I am a good 3-5 inches taller than her, I am 6'3 so if you looked at us you probably wouldn't notice the difference, and I am not the worst looking guy in the world, I have dated girls in my class who are fairly good looking, I just want some advice for picking up this girl for lack of a better term, if you guys think I am not wasting my time! One last thing seeing as it is the beginning of the year I am pretty sure she is only 17 and I am 16, if that helps so only a 1 year age difference. please give some feedback please, I am going mad!