<p>I'm a high school junior, and am very interested in attending an Ivy League institution. During high school I received regular classes my freshman year (I earned straight A's), though my sophomore year I was bumped up with all honors and AP courses. I have only received two B's in high school, and one was in a high school course offered in 8th grade. I received a 3 on my first AP exam as well in World History. However, I'm now taking 4 AP's as a junior and know that with effort I will receive a 5 in U.S. History, Psychology, and Spanish. Oh, and at least a 4 in AP English. I plan on taking four more AP's my senior year too, and will strive to get at least a 4 or 5 in all of them. I will also take the English Language, U.S. History, and Spanish SAT subject tests in the spring as well as the SAT's and ACT's in March. My GPA from sophomore year was an weighted 4.2 (will rise to at least a 4.5 this year), and an unweighted GPA of 3.8. Additionally, I'm in the top 10% of my class. Academically, do I rank well enough?
In the community I've accumulated 150 hours over the past two years, and am the president of the drama club at my school. I've earned superior awards within the state in the club, too. I am also the vice president for the Gay/Straight Alliance, and have been doing an incredible amount of activism lately. Besides those two, I'm a member of the glee club, National Honor Society, International Thespian Society, and academic team.
Overall, should I strive to make it into the Ivy League? Preferably, I'd like to attend either Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, or Brown. If not those schools, what tier 1 schools should I be looking at? </p>
<p>Any help or advice would be much appreciated! :)</p>
<p>^yeah, you’re on track, but i’ll say your chances are slim. and yeah, we won’t be able to tell for sure until u get your SAT scores. your ranking is very nice, but your classes/grades are pretty average at ivy level. your ap scores don’t really matter that much in the college app, since u can write down your ap scores but they would not be able to check it until u get accepted and u send your official ap scores report. u have a lot of clubs, but they are reallllllly average, so i hope those awards/activism were really significant. national honor society matters next to nothing to colleges. </p>
<p>use your junior year wisely. remember a lot can happen in a year, either for the bad or good. also remember there are a lot of factors affecting your college app, such as race, opportunities at your school, essays, competitiveness of your school,. and etc. if u keep your gpa up and really dig into your clubs, then u can still try. idk what other schools u should look at since idk what u’re planning to be.</p>
<p>Being qualified and getting in are 2 different things but of course you shoul strive for it.</p>
<p>Much more that just stats are involved although you do need great stats. Where you’re from, what opportunities you’ve had, how you stack among your classmates, income level and more are very important in the equation.</p>
<p>I’d say use your junior year to expand your idea of where you want to go to college. The fact that you said you want to attend an Ivy League institution tells me that you want to go there for no other reason than it is in the Ivy League. There are so many schools that are not in the Ivy League where you can get an outstanding education and which are easier to get into.</p>
<p>But of course your dreams are your own. When it comes time to apply any school that is in the Ivy League is a reach for you or anyone else for that matter. Make sure you also apply to schools that are matches for you and at least one that is a safety. I can think of two stories on these boards of really outstanding students who were overly fixated on the Ivy League and ended up with no where to go.</p>
<p>A big thanks to everyone! You all really did give me some useful information. I definitely do have some universities in state that I would use as a back up, and I’m going to study biology before I apply to medical school. The schools I was looking at were Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, and Brown in the Ivy League and Duke, UC Berkeley, University of Florida, and Florida State University for the others. </p>
<p>I will definitely use my junior year wisely.</p>