What does it take for a girl with Big Dreams to be accepted into an Ivy League School?

Grow up! Ivy League schools are overrated, and you don't need to attend one. The only reason you want to go is to prove yourself and boost your self-esteem. Your "reasons" to go to Harvard make no sense. You say you are annoyed about people joining clubs and wanting to go to Harvard for the money. News flash, that's life. Those people are everywhere. And, most of the people at Harvard are interested in a) making more money and b) competing against you. Harvard isn't some fairy tale land where everyone's nice and wants to help everyone. It's cold hard reality where your classmates are brutally competing against you and undermining you to OUTSMART and OUTRANK you. Get an education ANYWHERE. It doesn't matter in the slightest, especially not for a mere undergraduate degree. You can "help" people or "become a better person" ANYWHERE. Don't believe that BS about having to go to Harvard to become better. That's horse s**t and is far from the trusth. You need a taste of the real world. I feel sorry for you. You really have no idea what life's all about, nor even what schools like Harvard are all about.

4.0, key club, class president, etc. basically is like everyone else applying to Harvard, etc. Why do you want to go to Harvard so much? Forget Ivy League stereotypes and focus on the INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMS with the best rankings. If you're wanting to be a lawyer, look at the best pre-law programs. Ivy or not doesn't mean jack crap if you have to go into insane debt for it, and if their pre-law program is less than ideal. It also doesn't matter if you don't have the work experience, the leadership experience, and talent. You don't need Ivy to be a successful lawyer. Get the good grades. Get a full ride to the best pre-law program you can find.. without getting any student loans. Study your butt off in college, and apply to the top law schools. You say you want to help people. So DON'T go to an Ivy League school. Instead, that that $120,000+ in tuition money and help develop sustainable farming and employement in third-world countries. You don't have to go to an Ivy league school-- or any school-- to help people. That's a load of crap. You can take interesting classes at any college, be it an Ivy or community college. You need to work on lessening your naivete and understanding how reality really works. Ivy or not is one of the LEAST important things in life.

If you weren't so medicore, you'd excel at an "ordinary", non Ivy league school and prove that you don't need a schools' outdated reputation to define your self-worth. Your logic here is simply pathetic.

You will probably hate these answers, but here they are. At this fragile young age, you need to focus much more on who you are than what you are and what your are going to do. If you get a good, solid education in high school, and if you learn to develop your mind as well as your brain, your personality and your soul as well as your resume. you will do well in life. Otherwise, while you may succeed in the short run, I predict long term unhappiness and disillusionment. I base my answer on going to a small college in a state you probably can't find on a map. In a addition, it is a religious school with strict lifestyle rules. Nothing good, let alone excellent, is going to come out of this, right? Well, one of my classmates became an astronaut with NASA within a very few years of graduating. He made three space flights, including one in which he was the mission commander. He continues to be very active in the aero-space industry. My roommate got in on the ground floor of a little no-name company at the time called Intel. He has since gotten them to pay for his MBA and his law degree. He specializes in protecting their intellectual property rights. Another young woman a year ahead of me has had a very successful career with the CIA--though if she told us exactly what she did she would have to kill us. Another works for the Centers for Disease Control and worked on top of the line AIDS research. Another is a top astro-geophysicist specializing in Mars studies and working for the Smithsonian. Others were very successful in more conventional ways as lawyers, teachers, doctors, and ministers. I myself came back to teach at this school. My former students since then have included a Rhodes Scholar who later earned a degree in films studies from NYU. Another is one of the top researchers nationally in the human genome project. Two others have had successful medical careers after graduating from Harvard Medical School. (Yes, it is possible to attend a school like this and get into top flight graduate and professional schools.) The lesson is that all these people were inner-driven. Not one of them overtly worked on their "resumes" as students. (The astronaut was a campus champion Foosball great and loved singing in the mixed ensemble. The human genome expert loved photography and playing the flute. The Rhodes Scholar played tennis and loved horror films. In other words, they were all real people.) I see so many incoming freshmen who are walking resumes. I hate to tell them that they're not going to get there. The evaluators at the next level can see right through this stuff. Be who you are and enjoy it. What if you are "only" an excellent high school teacher? Who else is going to educate and inspire the next generation? Like I said, if you don't slow down and re-evaluate now, I foresee an ulcer if not a mental breakdown in your future. Take care of yourself, and good luck!

Here's the thing. You're doing well so far, but you're only one semester into high school. It's just going to get harder. Take the most difficult courses you can if you want to stand out - but pretty much everyone applying to Harvard has a 4.0 and many are validictorians. You need something different about yourself to stand out - no just grades, sports, clubs, etc - everyone has those. Try to decide what you want to do with your life, and try getting involved now through volunteering or internships or research. Publish a book or poetry or original research, start a business or non-profit, etc.