<p>(1) How high would your GPA have to be to be considered for an Ivy League College?</p>
<p>(2) What type of volunteer work would be best + how many hours?</p>
<p>(3) How many SAT IIs and APs are ideal?</p>
<p>THANKS</p>
<p>1) Vast amjority of your grades must be “A”'s, a couple of “B”'s are survivable</p>
<p>2) Volunteer & EC’s time could be tied to your career interest but isn’t absolutely imperative</p>
<p>3) SAT requirements vary from college to college, I Knosw Cornell required 2, no sewt # with AP’s, just make sure you take the rigerous courses offerred at your school.</p>
<p>(1) How high would your GPA have to be to be considered for an Ivy League College?</p>
<p>HIGH.</p>
<p>(2) What type of volunteer work would be best + how many hours?</p>
<p>You should do volunteer work that is meaningful to YOU…not volunteer work that you think will be attractive to a college.</p>
<p>(3) How many SAT IIs and APs are ideal?</p>
<p>Re: APs…you should take a rigorous courseload at your high school. There is no ideal number of these to take.</p>
<p>Re: SAT IIs…Most Ivies require two SAT II subject tests as part of the admissions requirements.</p>
<p>You didn’t mention ACT or SAT scores…those need to be quite good too.</p>
<p>Remember the Ivies reject about 90% of the students who apply. In that group are a bunch of very well qualified students. You need to do the best you can…apply if you’d like, and then just wait to see if you are among the 10% who are accepted. There are NO guarantees for Ivy admissions…none (unless your parent is a country president or you recently won a nobel prize).</p>
<p>Thanks for your tips. Any other important advice for getting into an ivy school?</p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>^^ And you need to do the hard work needed to find some true safeties - colleges you’re enthused about attending that you’re certain to get in and that you and/or your parents are certain you/they can pay for.</p>
<p>Daniel, I just have to ask…why do you want to go to an Ivy League school? Are you considering other options as well? What are you looking for in a college (not the name…the characteristics)?</p>
<p>I’m considering others too, but Ivy admission standards are the some of the highest, so I figured that setting them as a goal would prepare me for other colleges too.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Depends on the school, but at most public school I’d say the GPA that puts you in the top 5% of your class. (Realizing that some Ivies are harder to get into than others of course.)</p></li>
<li><p>The best type of volunteer work is the one that you are interested in doing. My son worked one summer at the senior center and did some unpaid programming for professors. That was all he had. </p></li>
<li><p>This is also school dependent. You should take a rigorous schedule in the context of your school. I’d guess that most kids at our school who get into Ivy league schools have 7 to 10 APs. Typically they take AP World or AP Physics B as sophomores, APUSH and an AP Science as juniors, some will also take AP English Lang, then senior year most will take AP Calc (about 2/3 will take AB and 1/3 BC), many another AP Science, some AP Euro, some AP English Lit, lots will take an AP foreign language. But a few years back MIT said the average number of APs students they accept have is five. If our school didn’t offer so many APs students would take fewer of them.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As for SAT II’s - that’s easy most schools require 2, there’s no need to take more, though both my kids went ahead and took three as long as they were in the room. My younger son didn’t like his math score so he ended up taking them again. They both took a science, US History and Math. My younger son took Lit instead of math the second time.</p>
<p>My advice to getting into an Ivy school is to forget about getting into an Ivy school. Follow your interests, don’t worry about getting the occasional B. Explore something you love in depth. Enjoy life. Read. Play games.</p>
<p>To get into any top school pay attention to doing the work required to get the best grades you can. Don’t do as my son did- he was bored in some AP courses and didn’t always do the homework- this cost him in some classes. Be involved in activites you like. Follow the other advice given before mine. Enjoy yourself.</p>
<p>“he was bored in some AP courses & didn’t always do his homework” …just curious, what college did your son end up attending & how did he do there?</p>
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<p>Take a look at “How They Got into Harvard”, in which “50 successful Harvard applicants share 8 key strategies for getting into the college of your choice.” The strategies shared are pretty common sense and not all will apply to everyone (Flaunt our talent and get recruited; be passionate; find the perfect balance; lead the pack; beat the odds; write the standout essay; make and use connections; make yourself heard and campaign to win). The interesting thing is to see how that advice gets translated into real people and real things that they do. </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> How They Got into Harvard: 50 Successful Applicants Share 8 Key Strategies for Getting into the College of Your Choice (9780312343750): Staff of the Harvard Crimson: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/How-They-Got-into-Harvard/dp/0312343752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310132394&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/How-They-Got-into-Harvard/dp/0312343752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310132394&sr=1-1)</p>
<p>Important advice for getting into an Ivy League - donate enough money to build a building, otherwise, it’s a crapshoot!</p>