<p>Hello everyone. I'm looking for some advice from people who can help me with my situation. Well I just finished 9th grade(I'll be in 10th in a month) and my year sucked. I was in all core(no advanced) classes and messed up in all of them. I have a 71 average and get usually 1 B, 6 C's and an F each marking period. I go to mediocre high school in NYC and I feel like I ended any and all hope of getting into a top 15 college. I really want to do I-Banking after college and to do that, I need to get into a "Target School", in other words I need to get into an IVY, Stanford, UMich or NYU. In 10th grade, I'll most likely be in all normal classes and I know it's an important year. I've done nothing with my summers and to be honest, I have nothing I'm passionate about. I've always been told that I have the potential to get a 95 average ever since 6th grade but I've never done it. In middle school, I was always a B student who always got 100's on test but never done homework or studied. It seems like that's catching up to me now. How do you guys with the straight A's and GREAT EC's do it? I always see people with these out of the world EC's such as built homes in Haiti, won these large music awards, worked with Senators and important people, worked with MIT professors, etc...how'd you find out about them and how can someone like me get to do it? I'm currently ranked in the middle of my class and 95% of the students here only worry about their clothes, phone, reputation and sex. I will probably only be able to take 1 or 2 Ap's from now to college app time since my horrible start has set me back so I'm going to have to self study alot....how will I go about doing this? I've talked to my GC about this and she didn't even know what self studying was. Will I be able to sit for a AP test if I studied on my own...will the GC have a say in this? So to sum this up, how do I get great grades(straight A's), my school ISNT HARD AT ALL but I just don't study for try. Im not motivated by anything, I know what I want to do in life and I know what I need to do to get there, I just don't seem to listen to myself(im lazy)? How/Where do I find these EC's people do, how can I make myself competitive again in the college admissions?
My backround: Black male, 33k/year income from mom(live with mom only). My school send almost everyone to community college and unknown 4 yr colleges. Help me pls. :)</p>
<p>EDIT: I've been studying for the SAT's from the BB and if I get a 2250+ and get atleast a 95 average from 10th grade on, will I be competitive for Princeton and Stanford?</p>