If I am a high school student who received A’s and B’s his freshman year but received all A’s his sophomore, junior, and senior year in honors and AP courses. I scored in the top 96 percentile on SAT’s. I have played division one hockey my sophomore junior and senior year. I play guitar and am exceptional at graphic design and photoshop (I have a webpage where I am payed to design graphic art). Will I be able to get accepted into a top level school such as Harvard, Yale, or Stanford?
Top 96 percentile, while excellent, is something in the 1400’s iirc. Most people who apply to those schools with high 1500 SATs are rejected. I’m not saying “don’t apply” but the odds aren’t in your favor. The odds aren’t in anyone’s favor.
If you want to pursue graphic design, focus on good schools for that field. Your webpage can serve as a portfolio which might even lead to scholarships. Figure out where the top people in your fields of interest went to school. First though, look at what your family can afford and work from there.
Those SATs are a bit low to have much of a chance, but you can find out for sure for the price of an application.
You still have excellent stats, and will be competitive at some very well-regarded colleges, just not the Ivies and Ivy-equivalents.
Look at it this way. You are among the top 4% of students taking SAT. Those top schools your mentioned are within the top 0.5% of all colleges in the country. It is going to be a tough competition.
Might be recruitable for hockey.
I am guessing that this is a hypothetical question. If you really had all A’s senior year then applications would be in or mostly in at this point. If you really had 96th percentile for the SAT, then you would have a specific score.
There are a lot of very good universities. Many students dream of going to Harvard or Stanford. However, these schools, while excellent in many ways, are actually a good fit for only a few students. Even fewer can get accepted.
@jakebagby, a mix of A’s and B’s freshman year of high school will not keep you from attending a very good university that is a good fit for you. If or when you have more specific numbers such as GPA and SAT scores, and if/when you have more specific interests in terms of what you want to major in and what sort of university or college you want to attend and what sort of geographic area you are interested in and when you know what you can afford, then folks here on CC can be helpful to suggest some very good schools that might or might not be a good fit for you.
Why those schools? Why do you think that you must go to a “top level” school and that you belong at a “top level” school? What does “top level” even mean? Please ask around where your community leaders and the professionals in your parents’ lives went to undergrad and I’d bet that it was more likely State U than Stanford.
I wouldn’t stress over the school. Ivy leagues are the most overrated bachelor-granting institutions you can go to. If you’re interested in computers, school name really matters even less because it’s a field in high demand. Trust me, if you go for a scholarship, you’ll thank yourself later.