@LushLillies The Class of 2017 is so smart! We had our first ivy acceptance (Duke), and then like three National Merit Semifinalists. Our class won’t live up to the standard, as the most qualified students don’t even want to APPLY to Ivy Leagues (which is understandable, it sucks to be rejected), and our PSAT scores were trash lollll.
@LushLillies Same here! The French Horn in the youth orchestra I’m in got into Dartmouth, the Tuba player got into Berklee College of Music (she didn’t think she’d get in), and one of the first violins got into NYU! Another one of the first violins got into Bowdoin ED.
The Class of 2016 at my school had a lot of very smart people (there’s a kid now at Stanford, another Harvard, someone at Brown, and another who’s going to Yale after his gap year). Class of 2015 wasn’t too bright (we did send one person to Yale and another Dartmouth). Class of 2014 was another year with smart people (someone at Princeton and another Columbia). My grade will probably be the same as the other even graduation years (there’s very smart people in my class), but I don’t think I’ll be among those going to elite schools - my GPA is too low.
Your grade will do amazing! Believe in yourselves! I believe in you all!
@overachieving Duke isn’t an Ivy League school. The Ivy League schools are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.
We only had two great acceptances, not even Ivies though, at my school even though we are a college prep. My class is the best one my school has ever seen and so I’m so excited to see where everyone goes. I feel like there is a lot of competition within my graduating class and college apps and acceptances won’t be any different.
@frazzledazzle Omg…I always get Duke and Cornell confused, and I have no idea why. My friend got accepted into Cornell, not Duke. Good thing I’m not planning to apply to either schools LOL
@overachieving I usually forget Brown or Cornell. I’m not applying to either as well. Lol! The only Ivies I’m considering applying to are Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth.
@frazzledazzle I’m only considering Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and the rest are pseudo-ivies. I’m only doing Princeton because parents. Sigh.
And I always forget Brown.
@LushLillies @frazzledazzle The majority of kids that graduate from my school go to community college, and then a lot go to state universities. So my school is basically nothing compared to all of you guys lol
@overachieving welcome! My goal is to also get into MIT!
@solarsystem that’s still good! gotta save money 
well, we have a small class but at least last year most kids went to the state college with scholarships. plus we’re a test-entry school so it’s already semi-selective to be admitted to the high school lol but it’s still cool you wanna go to MIT! A couple of my friends really wanna go there too
@overachieving yah…I think about 10% of the class were NM Semifinalists, several Ivy acceptances that I know of, potentially lots I don’t know of (Duke, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, etc)…it’s so crazy! My grade is so much more lazy. We have people with amazing grades, a lot of people have super good GPAs, must not many people have any leadership or do many ECs. There’s a ton of competition but its often about dumb things. And the competition has sorta died down…or at least I’ve avoided a lot of it by doing different things than everyone.
@frazzledazzle thanks for the motivation! I hope you’re right!
And don’t doubt yourself; GPA isn’t everything! I know people at great schools with a decent amount of B’s and not being URMs at all. A couple of bad grades is fine! Just probs don’t wanna have straight C’s for Harvard 
not that you have straight C’s, just givin’ an example!
@ak2018 God I wish my school had a club like that, it sounds amazing!! Please keep us updated on how it goes.
Also this is super backed up but I just wanna agree w/ @snowfairy137 on the Northeastern and MIT statements…Northeastern is super cool and modern and right in the heart of the Boston downtown area! I’m not sure how good engineering is there, but the business, arts, and health programs are very good. It’s very good if you’re pre-professional; you can secure lots of good jobs offers after college immediately.
And MIT…I was interested in engineering when I toured, but I just felt something was off. It seemed a little like my high school in a weird, geeky way…which is kinda good but also didn’t fit for me that well. I’m not all that intellectual, and I felt like I would be the dumbest one there lol. The tour guide was nice but also a bit weird. The architecture was definitely funky…modern and old all in one. Now that I’m interested in med school I would definitely not waste my app there…but I still think if you want to do eng or math or physics and are a very intellectual student (maybe not EC heavy but high GPA and scores, robotics or math comps or those types of EC’s) then you would loveeee it.
@ChemistryKing7 Honestly, I’d rather be locked in at VT than have to wait any longer. VT was always my first choice school anyway. I expect to be burnt out by then. I’d only apply to MIT, if I get a 1400 or higher. At this point, with it looking like NASA and/or Lockheed Martin internships and engineering jobs are in my future, all I need to do now is go to a good college.
@singingwriting Depending on the state you live in, you may be able to start one.
Also, I thought of something really cool. Either now, once college apps start, or once we know what schools we’re going to, we should change our profile pics to match the schools we got into or our first choice school.
People at your schools get into such great colleges! We have one person going to Penn this year, but that’s only because he’s like #1 or #2 in our state for wrestling and they recruited him. Seriously, I’ve had two classes with him, and I know he didn’t get into an ivy because of his grades. I don’t mean to talk down on him, but it’s frustrating that someone with his grades and low work ethic can get into Penn. But hey, he’s good at wrestling.
C/O 2016 valedictorian got into Northeastern and salutatorian went to Drexel.
C/O 2015 valedictorian went to Lehigh. not sure where salutatorian went.
Back in 2012, this one guy went to Harvard. Literally people STILL talk about him. He was a stand out athlete in all three sports he played. He was incredibly smart also. He turned down schools with better football teams because he wanted to focus a lot more on academics, so he went to Harvard. I haven’t heard too much about him since, but I know he did a lot of volunteering in Africa.
Most students from my school wind up at local colleges, community college, or go straight to work. People from my class are motivated, but most of us lack the ECs and awards to get into an Ivy. We can’t even just start clubs either because no one joins them. The clubs now are held up by juniors because no other grade will participate. It’s frustrating for us because we feel limited by the few opportunities our school offers and the lack of motivation by the majority of students. But we do our best to make use of it.
@carmen00 My school has similar issues. What my friend group has been doing is forming clubs as a group, and then attending our own meetings. While it’s not sustainable, at least we have new clubs LOL
@LushLillies I want to do Pre-Med as well, and after reading some MIT admissions blogs and going through their website, I actually think their school is really good for Pre-Med. They have so many research opportunities, and their science classes seem so hard that I’ll barely have to study for the MCAT. Also, they have the MIT Physician Shadow Program, which may exist at other schools, but the other schools I visited didn’t talk about it. And if I attend MIT I have the option of taking the easier Harvard classes (I know, that sounds so weird, but that’s what some MIT pre-med students said).
But I’m also worried about being the dumbest person there if accepted. Like, these high school science classes are killing me, and MIT said they only cover the FIRST MONTH of their classes. Plus, I’m so worried I’ll be too dumb to research.
@overachieving I wish we could do that. We need to get approval from the administration and find an advisor for the club which is hard considering most teachers don’t care or already have too much on their plates. Most of our clubs are barely standing as it is, so creating a new club is hard. We’re acrually trying to recruit next year’s freshmen already because there will be no one in the clubs after we graduate.
@carmen00 That’s so rough. The MIT admissions director person or whatever (Sorry I keep talking about MIT LOL) kept talking about how you should “create your own opportunities”, but most of the time it’s not even that easy.
@overachieving Sort of on the same boat here. I’m only considering the schools that give full-rides or near full-rides to internationals because I don’t have $$$ and I really want to study somewhere else (as my entire life has been in this province; in total in my entire life, I’ve been outside of this province for only 1.5+/- months or 0.125 years out of 16 years from vacations). Problem is, those schools happen to be the top-top schools with absurdly low acceptance rates 
Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind applying to a high-rank/top school elsewhere in Canada (where having a 98/100 average will essentially get you into every university in Canada including top ones because no holistic admissions here).
And no, my parents will not let me study in a city in Canada like Toronto or Montreal because tuition and residence costs $10,000+/- more a year than studying in this province I’ve been in for an almost constant 16 years. It’s either go big (HYP) or go home (local university).
@carmen00 That’s what I had to do for my club too but my chem teacher is really nice and she was happy to be the advisor for my club. Anyway, me and the other president do most of the planning and forms so she doesn’t have to do anything 
@acomfysofa Canadian college cost, even for the top colleges there, are SO MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE than US. Like, my backup plan if everything goes wrong is to just go to the University of Toronto. Like if I wanted to attend UC Berkeley, it would be 60K.
ok update: I looked it up and U of T is 44k for international applicants. I take it back