My friend, who academically does worse than me in school, got into UC Berkeley. (eg. when i got 93 in chem in first try, she got 90 by redoing it online.)
Her parents have ton of money for tutoring, books, orchestra, special volunteering opportunities, SAT preps, etc. to make her a really strong applicant though.
(Btw, I am aware that UC Berkeley is not an Ivy League. However, it is ranked as high as Ivy League schools in rankings.)
Anyway, there are people like her, and then there are people with 93 averages with pretty decent supplementals getting rejected by UBC Commerce.

Something's messed up here.

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UBC Bachelor of Science 2012 — Major in Computer Science

Oh I see. Yeah US schools do base their decisions heavily on sup app.

I used to think that US elite schools were extremely prestigious & selective, but after seeing some people (who I didn't think were that amazing) get in, I now have different opinions.

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UBC Bachelor of Science 2012 — Major in Computer Science

I don't know about UC Berkley (other than it is generally a fairly competitive school), but the Wikipedia article on the Ivy League says acceptance rates range from about 7-20% of applicants depending on the school.

While high academic achievement is needed, they really are looking at the total package. They want good students, but they don't want to limit themselves solely to the people with 99% averages.

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Remember that it often takes just as long to do a search or two on Google to try and find the answer to your question as it takes to type it in a post here, let alone the time waiting for a reply.
If your question is "What mark does it take to get into University X", or "What are the requirements to get into University X", it's on their website and/or electronicinfo.ca (for Ontario schools). Particularly for Ontario schools, those ranges are a pretty good picture of what kind of mark will get you into the program, and if you're more than a couple percent higher it's practically guaranteed unless it requires a supplementary form.

I've always gotten the impression that the Ivy League schools aren't that much better than most others. I think they've gotten most of their prestige from the prestigious families who send their kids there (and who have the money to do so). I think frequently if you have the money to get in, you probably will.

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University of Alberta - Mechanical Engineering '11

There is no basis for this comment at all.

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-Stringer

Honestly, getting into an ivy league school is a lottery, your chances increase if you are a strong student, well-rounded and have good networking skills. Pay attention to that last bit, that's often the difference between getting in and getting rejected. Don't believe me? one of my good friends: high 80's, a few low 90's, a few sports (nothing major) and a bit of volunteering here and there ( again, only around 120 hours, no campaigns, no raising of 1000's of dollars) got into HARVARD Again, didn't have a 90's average or major achievements. The difference; contacts at Harvard

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Pourquoi?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf94uiIbItg

I was admitted into UPenn Arts and Science, and boy, I was totally not expecting it! Haha, I applied to five Ivies...Harvard, Columbia, UPenn Princeton and Yale. Got rejected by Princeton and Columbia but wait-listed for Harvard and Yale. Although I did get off the wait-list for Harvard recently (shocked my whole family....), I am still looking forward to attending UPenn in hopes of transferring to Wharton in my second year.

Applying for the Ivy Leagues is a tendious, and frustrating process! But again, it's worth a try, because you will never know....

And they are quite competitive...going into the single digitals for admission acceptance now! good luck tho

So does a person need high 90's to get in, or are low 90's good?

They evaluate it on a case by case? How much time do they spend looking at each application then?

And I checked the MIT admission stats page (although it's not an Ivy, but it's still a top school) - http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/ - what does ranking in the top 5% percent mean?

Thanks!

US schools do a "class ranking", where Suzie with the 99.2% average is #1, Joe with the 97.7% average is #2, and so forth. So this would mean in the top 5% of their class, where "class" is in the sense of "the class of 2008".

Totaling up the numbers in the class ranking column with the total number of admits and a sizable chunk of applicants (1/3rd ish) were not ranked in that way. And while being in the top 5% of your class is a good thing, it's clearly not an absolute must.

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Remember that it often takes just as long to do a search or two on Google to try and find the answer to your question as it takes to type it in a post here, let alone the time waiting for a reply.
If your question is "What mark does it take to get into University X", or "What are the requirements to get into University X", it's on their website and/or electronicinfo.ca (for Ontario schools). Particularly for Ontario schools, those ranges are a pretty good picture of what kind of mark will get you into the program, and if you're more than a couple percent higher it's practically guaranteed unless it requires a supplementary form.