For me at least, the only reason that I knew that I was good enough to apply to (and thankfully to get accepted into) Ivy League schools was because I had frien

For me at least, the only reason that I knew that I was good enough to apply to (and thankfully to get accepted into) Ivy League schools was because I had friends in high school that thought that they were going to do the same, and I thought I was smarter than them. Ego aside, the main way that I heard about colleges in high school was from the people that were around me in high school. I didn't simply Google "top tier universities" (and I find it hard to believe that others did).