Are the universities i want to go to too hard to get into?

What state do you live in? Sometimes you'll find pretty good colleges and universities in your own state, depending where you live. Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Texas are good examples. You don't always have to go for those big ivy league schools. They're not worth it anyways. When you apply for an actual job after college, no one is going to give a crap where you got your degree from. They're going to judge you on your abilities. For example, my friend's father owns an engineering business, and he's told me that most of the time, people who have graduated from schools like FIU or UNM have better working skills than people who come from MIT or Georgia Tech. Think about that for a while. P.S: If by "college level class" you mean an AP class, you won't get any credits at all from that class unless you pass it's respective AP exam. UCLA and Stanford are quite a long shot though, I'm going to be very honest with you. A girl from our high school with a 4.8 gpa and beautiful SAT scores was rejected from Stanford. Talk to your counselor. They'll be blunt but honest with you and will try their best to help you out. Good luck~

You need to think about course selection too--courses such as Culinary Arts and Fitness lifestyle design would not impress admission officers at either of these schools. Why these schools? Stanford is one of the most selective schools in the country. Does it have a special program that you are particularly interested in? the University of California system has many branches--some more selective than others. In addition to bringing up your grades, you need to do a lot of research and find schools that would suit you--not just choose them based on their reputations.

Your grades are way too low right now but if you work really hard and bring them up by junior year, along with sports/extracurriculars, community service, maybe get a job, and do really well on your SATs and maybe you'll have a chance.

Stanford is one of the most selective schools in the country and accepts only 7% of its applicants. Unless you start getting straight A's and have high SAT/ACT scores, it will be out of reach. There are several UC's. If you are thinking of UC Berkeley, that is likely to be out of reach too. Same for UCLA. What you need to do to get into an elite university is 1. Take the most challenging courses offered by your university and get A's in them 2. Study elementary logic and increase your vocabulary so you will do well on the SAT and ACT. Prepare for these tests using a test prep book or other means. 3. Engage in extracurricular activities - clubs, sports, volunteer work, etc. Take a leadership role. 4. Focus on becoming yourself at your best. 5. If possible, excel at something. Consider going to a school in the Cal State system instead, e.g. San Jose State.