<p>^ I agree that it depends on the school. But the HS in my example is a relatively elite public, consistently rated #1 or #2 in our state. Last year both State AP Scholars came from this one HS, so this isn’t some random, average school.</p>
<p>An elite private school might have better results, a typical public might have worse results. The simple fact is that there is nowhere near enough room in all the top ranked colleges for the top 5% of HS graduates.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley doesn’t even look at rank.</p>
<p>^^wow… That is really crazy and hard to believe but I’ll take your word for it.</p>
<p>community college probably isnt even an option for you. try re-doing ur high school experience or just homeschool. either way 3-5% ur done fore breh</p>
<p>I also think this is a valid question - in our HS it seems like only the val or sal have a chance at the Ivies. Top 5% will not make it.</p>
<p>I think reputation of HS is a tremendous factor.</p>
<p>My Nephew’s HS got something like 50 or 60 into Cornell last year (not counting the other Ivies). My D’s got at least 20 or 25 into Ivies. And a number into Ivy peers (e.g., Chicago, Duke). Yet we regularly read here that some schools are lucky to get valedictorian into an Ivy.</p>
<p>I agree with zephyr15, my school has been ranked 3rd in my state by several magazines but only send about 10-15 students (out of a 320 or so size class) to Ivies while a friend of mine who goes to a competitive private school in NY which sends much more. They even have assemblies for the entire school with admissions officers of Ivies.</p>
<p>EDIT: Valedictorian or even top 10 differs between schools as well. My school’s valedictorian last year had a weighted GPA of 4.5 (on a 4.3 scale) and was rejected from Yale but accepted to Princeton (while one of the top 5 was accepted to Yale).
Being accepted to an Ivy has a lot to do with chance, I believe, as all the applicants (usually) are highly-qualified.</p>
<p>“Don’t even bother with those schools! Unless you’re valedictorian, your best chances are a community college. Sorry.”</p>
<p>“I disagree with born2dance94”</p>
<p>That awkward moment when people don’t recognize sarcasm.</p>
<p>Chillax, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I think it is hard to answer this without knowing your SAT/SAT2/ECs…
Yes, in my D’s hs, the top 1% have traditionally gone to Ivies but it is because they had astounding ECs as well (leadership, sports or music talent, community service awards). I would think if your top 2-3 candidates have super GPA + super ECs, sure you are at a disadvantage. But on the other hand, if you have something else that is unique and sets you apart and you have comparable GPA/scores as your top candidate, you have a fair shot. So make yourself stand out from the top 3 candidates. Also all of them are not applying or accepting all the spots everywhere. There still are 20 other colleges you can apply.</p>
<p>And yes, I agree with @zephyr post. My thoughts exactly</p>
<p>You can look up any UC’s admissions policy. I believe they choose only to look at UC GPA, and not rank.</p>