<p>To the OP: </p>
<p>I come from a middle-class family and I transferred to Vandy last year. The average SAT scores of the students in my former school were in the bottom 20th-30th percentile of the United States (back then, I was a penniless music student on a full scholarship and I didn’t know anything about colleges). I had a traumatic experience at that place, and I was extraordinarily lucky to get into Vanderbilt. Transferring from School X to Vandy was like eating a Ruth’s Chris dinner after one straight year of White Castle. Yes, the prestige thing is silly (“HEY EVERYONE, I WENT TO RUTH’S CHRIS LAST NIGHT!”), and it is also silly to choose a school because it has more “prestige” (“RUTH’S CHRIS IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER STEAKHOUSE BECAUSE PEOPLE’S HEARD OF RUTH’S CHRIS”), but it sure pays to work your ass off in high school so you can get a quality education. I applaud you for your goal of getting straight A’s and I hope you won’t make me sad by giving up.</p>