<p>The SAT doesn’t gauge intelligence too well. A 1400 is a 1200 with about $100,000. </p>
<p>Your cousin may have gotten a lower SAT, got into Stanford and only got a 2.6 her first year or semester (which could be decent depending on her major. Stanford’s a tech school, so if she’s doing sciences with a weak background it could hurt) that doesn’t mean that the OP will. Cedric Jennings went to Brown with literally average SATs (1000’s) and managed a 3.3. Ben Carson scored in the 90th percentile and managed to graduate at the top of his class as a psych major on the premed track at Yale. Anthony Jack went to Amherst with a 1200 SAT (over 200 points below the school’s mean) and managed to graduate near the top of his class, and as a Rhode scholar. I personally know a girl with a 1750 at Northwestern that graduated comfortably in the top quartile that went to a school just as bad, or worse than the OPs. There are plenty of stories of students coming form modest educational backgrounds succeeding in highly competitive schools. Likewise, there are even more stories of students with high SATs and GPAs that flounder once they get to college. They don’t necessarily drop out, but they switch majors and graduate with below B averages. That’s because in college, studying hard and studying smart trumps just about everything, including intelligence (which isn’t an SAT score) and preparation.</p>
<p>This may come as a surprise, but at Stanford, 50% the students graduate at the bottom half of the class. Don’t think they’re all students with lower SATs.</p>