User Acting up! wrote: “I wanted a rough overview of the type of grades one needs to get, in order to get into an Ivy League school”.

This is quite a large question, and I don’t believe there is any single line that can be drawn where grades are “good enough” for one to get into an Ivy League school. I will, however, offer a rough overview of how you should think about this issue.

First, grades differ throughout the country. A good grade at one school differs from what is considered a good grade elsewhere. Some teachers may keep their average scores strictly at a C, while others may be inclined to give a large number of As. In order to deal with this lack of uniformity across applicants, admission officers look at academic achievement in the context of your school. Generally speaking, about 90% of students accepted to the Ivy League were in the top 10% of their class.

Here are some additional issues to consider. Trends; do your grades go up or down over the four years? Admission officers prefer the former over the latter. Difficulty; are your grades in easy classes, or are you taking the most difficult course-load available? Here, the latter is very important. Subject weakness; are your grades falling behind in a specific subject over four years, such as English? What do your test scores, recommendations, essays, and extracurriculars reveal about this weakness? Specific periods of depressed scores; do you fall behind for a particular semester? What is the reason? Divorce, death in the family, and illness are somewhat common events that will be taken under consideration to give you the benefit of the doubt.

As I said, this is a big topic. Remember, grades are only part of the equation. A large number of students with perfect grades are rejected, and a large number of students with weaker grades are accepted, each year. I hope this gets you started thinking. For further information, here is a grazr with links to useful admission statistics for each school.