My younger daughter graduates from college in one week. She had a 4.0 GPA throughout high school. Our high school does not name valedictorians but we know she was tied for top rank because she was awarded a state prize that goes only to the highest ranked students at each high school. She did a sport and music. She had a 35 on the ACT and 2350 (I think) on the SAT. She did not get into either of the Ivies to which she applied nor into Stanford. She did get into several other highly ranked schools. One student from her class of 500 went to an Ivy, to which he was recruited because of his sport. Two went to Stanford.