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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid (11th grade) is smart. Like, super smart. Not genius level, but he has maintained his 4.0 with ease and sails through AP and DE classes. His IQ is somewhere around 140. He hasn't taken the SAT yet, but I'm sure he'll do super well.

Despite all this, he keeps telling me he has "no shot" at good colleges (not Ivies, but schools like UC Davis, Georgia Tech, etc). I really don't understand how college admissions have become so competitive that a child in the 99th percentile will have trouble being admitted to schools without insanely low acceptance rates.

Is he exaggerating, or is this true?[/quote]
[b]He is exaggerating. Plenty of truly smart 140IQ kids get in. He needs to take the highest level of classes possible[/b]—99th percentile yet avoiding hardest classes is a fast track to rejection. He should be able to get all As unless he is in one of the few high schools where As in hard classes are only for the top 1/4 of students and a large portion of the class is 98-99th percentile kids. In 11th gr he still has time to find some leadership or so some volunteering in his community: show he is a human who cares about something besides himself and school. Involvement in Arts/music of any kind is extremely common among kids who attend ivy/t20 schools. If he already does this it will help. If he is not a jerk and he participates in class/loves learning he will have great LORs. These are important: he needs to get to know teachers well. Have him aim high and also have a lot of T25-50 schoos or lower LACs(below 15th are a lot easier). Read MIT applying sideways. [/quote]
lol.  Your entire post after the boded shows he probably won't get in with just the high stats. That's the point - high stats alone won't get you in.

btdt with a kid with higher stats than OP's kid.[/quote]
DP. 
The post says PLENTY get in. Not all. OP said kid said "NO shot" . There is a shot, and plenty get in. Some don't. The advice helps the OP be more likely to GET IN. Agree with the apply sideways blog. [/quote]
OP is only focusing on stats.  Stats alone won't get you into T15.  That was my point.  My kid had higher stats from a magnet program and rejected from GATech, though they were a CS major which is a lot more competitive.  They did not have stellar extra curriculars. Don't know about LoR or the essay.[/quote]
Oh , and they also got rejected to Cal and UCLA.[/quote]

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