Do sat scores matter more or the board exam results.

Hi I am an international student from India studying in grade 10 cbse and my high school performance isn’t great.

9th grade - 70/100
10th grade -80+ (Expected)

I have taken a couple of practice sat tests and scored around 1550 and expect a 1550+ for sure also I have registered for Ap macroeconomics and Ap microeconomics and expect 5s on both of them, Next year I plan on shifting to an IB school because my current school sucks and there aren’t any Ap exams or ECs offered so my question is will my 9th and 10th scores matter a lot even if I have a high sat score and do well on APs IBs and sat subject tests will I be academically qualified for the Ivy League?

The Ivy schools are VERY different from each other but they, and the other 4000 universities in the US, emphasize grades and performance in the classroom.

The Ivies are very competitive, expensive and mostly filled by people with hooks. Hooks are recruited athletes, celebrities, renowned international artists, underrepresented US minority groups, and large donors. These universities don’t have room for all of the tens of thousands of students who apply.

Focus on your current studies and bring your grades up. The universities care about your high school grades. All of them.

I don’t know why international students assume that the only schools in the US are the Ivies.

thanks for the advice but I am specifically aiming for the top economics/business schools and the best fit for me are Wharton Harvard and Uchicago I meant Ivy leagues as in top schools and i also will try to bring my grades up and do well and I will not at all be applying for financial aid anyways thanks.

Try to keep your academics towards the top 5-10% in your school. Also, EC’s are also very important.

Why the poor grades at your current school? Also, I have a feeling that your high SAT scores are a reflection of the dumbing down of American schools, which means that you’ve more than learned the material expected to have been mastered for the SAT. Most US students who are B/C students don’t score anywhere near that on the SAT.

Low grades and high SAT scores are indicative of smart but “uninspired” (read lazy) students. Every field requires some amount of plain old hard slogging work, some more than others. If your SATs and AP exam scores are both fantastic, plus you do extremely well academically henceforth, I think you still have a shot, especially if you can develop a “hook” - some area in which you have stellar achievement, like starting a successful business. So the game is far from over for you, but you really need to pull those grades way up.

And yes, there are many other excellent options for you besides Wharton, Harvard, and U Chicago. So don’t be discouraged. Focus now on grades and coming up with a business idea that you can develop from India (assuming that’s where you are). All the better if it’s something that helps the poor to improve their own economic situation, in the way that early dissemination of cell phones in rural areas, microloans, bicycle irrigation pumps for farmers, solar panels for light to study by after dark did. If you can come up with something original that helps people to improve their economic situation, that can show some degree of early success, I suspect that would be very interesting to a business school admissions committee, much more so than joining your school’s stock market club.

Look at this organization, Kickstart (not kickstarter). http://kickstart.org/

Does India have something like this? Is there some other product that might help Indian farmers adjust to climate change? Something on a small, model scale? Is there some way that you could help Kickstart expand to India?

Look up other successful programs for micro startups for the rural or megacity poor, that have helped people. It would give you ideas for a business-related project you could do in India. It doesn’t have to be a brand new, first time ever idea. It can be something that has been tried (and worked) in other areas of the world, that might be successful in your country, or some variation on the theme. The first person to have flown a plane in Australia still made the record books, even though it wasn’t the first flight ever. Starting up something unique in your country that shows drive, creativity, leadership, and social justice through self-earned economic advancement is just the thing to set you apart when applying to business school.