I would love to go to an Ivy League school, even though some may think they’re overrated. If you already in college or have finished college, what advice can you give to a sophomore in High School? Was there anything you did in High School that helped you get into the college of your choice?
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To get into selective schools, like those in the Ivy League, you generally want to take the most rigorous courses that your school offers and do well in them. You should want 4 years of math, science, history, English, and foreign language. Get involved in ECs that are interesting to you. Don’t do things just for college applications.
That said, why do you want to go to an Ivy League school? Which one do you prefer? You do realize that they are all different, right? Don’t target schools just because they belong to a certain athletic conference.
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Forget Ivy League - this is for any top college. Challenge yourself academically - but don’t kill yourself. If you want Ivy League, you have to take a crazy schedule with lots of APs - but those are not for everyone - and you want to stretch yourself, but you also don’t want to fail. Many make a statement like you made - but it’s just not meant for them. That would actually hurt you.
Do well on your standardized tests. yes, there is test optional today but anything that can add value is good.
Get involved - band, sports, clubs, work, etc. Find a couple or three things that interest you - and get involved. Grow to leadership but don’t just get a title. Accomplish things - so that you can write about them. Make an impact. Lead a beach cleanup. Walk dogs. Be the basketball manager at school. Whatever interests you.
Learn to write. Focus hard on it. I’d also google and learn the common app prompts. One is typically write an essay on a topic of your choice. You can check schools for others. No - you’re not going to write this now - but if something crosses your mind, write it down - i.e. you can brainstorm as you go through life.
Discuss with your parents - what type of college savings fund you’ll have. Will you qualify for aid? Will you be full pay. If you are - by the time you go - are they willing to pay $330 or $340K for you to go?
Finally - why do you want to go to an Ivy League school. You should want to go to the right school. Dartmouth (rural) is not Penn, Columbia or Brown (city)…is not Cornell (large), etc.
There’s hundreds if not more great schools out there. There’s mall, medium, large. There’s schools that are perceived just as good as Ivy - your Rice, Chicago, MIT, Northwestern, etc. There’s public schools with a lot of Ivy level kids who go for the $$ - Alabama, for example, has the most national merit scholars in the country. The point is - open your mind.
It’s way too early for you to put your focus on one thing - but it is good that you are planning because taking the right steps will help you regardless of where you end up. If you’re interested, you might also ask your family to take a spring break trip and start college visits a little early.
Good luck to you.
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The best advice out there is still this, from MIT Admissions:
When you say “I would love to go to an Ivy League school” I hear “I want the external validation that comes with going to a college with a high-status name”.
They have very different personalities, campus cultures and strengths- figure out which one(s) are likely to be the best fit for you. You can then use that understanding of what suits you to identify other colleges that might also suit you- which will be useful if (as happens to 90+% of applicants) you don’t end up with an offer.
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In addition to what others have written above:
Spelling, punctuation and grammar are important.
Perfect, or near perfect stats + outstanding LORs + superlative essays + luck.
National level awards and achievements.
Attending top level summer programs like RSI.
Legacy.
Major Donor.
Recruited athlete.
Better to be a URM than an ORM.
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I agree with @collegemom3717. You should read the blog that she references and think about it. The approach advocated in this blog, at least to the extent that I understand it, is exactly what I did to get into MIT. This was a long time ago, but one daughter did pretty much the same thing to get into a very good DVM program where she is in her first year now.
The point is to do what is right for you, and do it very well.
No one can tell you what you can do that will will get you into a top school. However, if you do what is right for you, then this will help you get into a great school that is a good fit for you. If you belong at Harvard or MIT, then you will be the sort of student who takes tough classes and does very well in them. However, you should take those classes only if they are the right classes for you. Similarly with ECs, if you do what you want to do, then you are more likely to do it very well.
There is an assumption here that “do what you want to do” and “get top grades” are consistent statements. I think that for students who are going to do well at the top ranked universities these will be consistent statements. If a student hates taking the more rigorous classes in high school or does not want to put in the effort to get top grades, this might be a big hint that a highly ranked university might not be a good fit.
Also, you should find out what the differences are between different universities, and find a school that is a good fit for you. Some students will prefer a smaller school such as a liberal arts college. Some students will want a STEM oriented school. Some students will want to be in a big city. Some others will want to be in a smaller town.
Also, if you do graduate from MIT or Harvard or any similar school, you can expect to spend your career working with students who graduated from a very wide range of other schools. You will discover that people who went to less famous schools are just as good at their job, and that no one cares where you went to school. You do not go to a top school to impress an employer. You might do it if it is the right fit for you.
You also should pay attention to your budget.
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You are only a sophomore. Wait a year to think about college. Work hard, make friends, and develop your interests.
When the time comes to look at schools focus on what fits you rather than trying to fit yourself to a set of schools.
Often when a young person says they want to go to an Ivy League school, they may need to learn about all the other excellent colleges out there.
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You need to also that the Ivy League schools all have a distinct and different personality. They aren’t all the same. They aren’t even geographically all the same (some are rural, some urban, for example).
IF (and I mean IF) you decide to apply to these schools, your “why name the Ivy” essay will need to be compelling.
I wish someone could link the NPR show where Ivy students were interviewed and were asked why they were accepted. Most had no idea why!
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No need to go to NPR; I believe there is a moderator on this site who has said the same thing. 
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Here you go…
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Always risky to correct @skieurope, but I’m pretty sure it’s a super moderator…
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Are you expecting us to tell you to try harder?
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In all honesty, my only advice is - do not set your heart on “an Ivy League School”. Unless you are a super talented Athlete, come from a super-wealthy family, or are likely to win a couple of national-level prizes - you will most likely not be accepted. These colleges reject 95%-99% of all applicants with top GPAs, top test scores, strong ECs, etc.
So, for your own happiness and sanity, stop trying to make plans along the lines of “how I will be accepted to an Ivy”.
More importantly, “an Ivy” is a meaningless term. The Ivy league is a athletic conference, not a set of slightly different colleges. They are different in size, location, and atmosphere. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Yale is very different than Brown, as are Dartmouth and Cornell.
You are, essentially, looking at prestige as though it was a major (or even minor) factor in determining whether you will succeed and thrive in college.
Do your best at high school. Do stuff that will make you feel proud, no matter what college you attend.
There is a limit - per admissions people, there is no advantage, for admissions, in taking more than about 10 AP courses. That is a lot, but there are students who think that taking 25 APs is better than 20, and 20 is better than 15.
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You have to read all of what i wrote - not one sentence. I encouraged the OP to take the pace that is right for them…
Just wanted to shed some facts on this oft-mentioned illogical statement.
ORM (generally accepted to be students of Asian heritage) comprise 5.4% of people in America.
URM (generally accepted to be students of African-American and/or Hispanic heritage) comprise 30.3% of people in America.
At Princeton, ORMs comprise 25.15% of underclassmen, while URMs comprise 19.5% of underclassmen. To state another way, ORMs are represented at Princeton at a rate nearly 5 times their representation in America, while URMs are represented at Princeton at a rate approximately 0.66 times their representation in America. Put another way, an ORM high school student is 8 times more likely to be admitted to an Ivy League university than an URM high school student.
By that metric, if a high school student wishes to attend an Ivy League university, it is better by far to be an Over Represented Minority than an Under Represented Minority. That is literally what the “Over Represented” and “Under Represented” stand for. It’s illogical to deduce otherwise, and that narrative was created by and is pushed by groups with an undeniably racist agenda. Please don’t fall prey to their delusions.
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That’s one way to look it, but it’s valid only if you’re looking at the U.S population as a whole. If you restrict the analysis to students who have a legitimate chance of getting into an elite school – i.e., those who have exceptional academic and extracurricular credentials – the odds of admission are surely better for folks who belong to underrepresented groups.
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And that’s valid only if you believe incomplete metrics like a test score provide a complete measure of an applicant’s ability to perform well at the university. Further, the quote is valid only if you believe all students have equal opportunity to achieve the same high scores. Those are two important factors and studies have proven neither indicates one student (1350) will perform worse than another student (1580).
So again, we’re back to the fact that it is a fact that if one desires to attend an Ivy League institution, your odds are exponentially better if you were born an ORM rather than a URM. #facts
BTW, I think it’s great that there is such a thing as ORM when it comes to these schools. There was a time when there were NO minorities at all. I’m reading a biography of Woodrow Wilson and while he did great things, he was also an inveterate racist while president of Princeton. Woodrow matter-of-factly told minority applicants to not bother applying because the university (under his rule) would not admit them. He fired Jewish staff for no reason. Jewish students were treated terribly. Etc etc. For there to now be 45% minorities at Princeton is a great improvement!
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#opinion
Regardless, let’s move the conversation forward if you’re not going to address OP.
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Happy to move on. I merely stopped by to correct off-topic stray non-factual information. I don’t want the OP to be misled by bad information.
Ivy leagues are really more a “smart kid” lottery than a competition. Getting perfect grades, perfect scores, president of 12 clubs, etc…(you get what I mean) are typically unreasonable standards for anyone, much less emotionally developing teenagers.
Selection criteria is subjective, and vastly differs from school to school. There’s no formula that can increase your “odds.” But most importantly, don’t put yourself through a laundry list of extracurriculars. First off, it comes across as disingenuous, secondly, kids have mental breakdowns over the sheer stress.
Just be yourself and stay balanced. Send in what you have. If they accept you…GREAT! If not, go to a college that loves you back.
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