Hi I have an 88 during my first semester in on-level ELA

If you are seriously considering applying to Ivy League schools you should be in Honors English and getting As in Honors English. All 8 Ivys are extremely competitive and expect you to be an A student taking the most challenging course available to you. If you are having a difficult time getting an A in standard English, you need to consult with your parents and figure out whether or not you need a tutor or some additional support from an after-school program.

Most successful Ivy admits have taken Honors English in 9th/10th and AP Lang/AP Lit in 11th/12th and received As. Taking the hardest English classes prepares you to succeed on the SAT/ACT and gives you the skillset to write exceptional essays that are part of the admissions process. The caveat to this is Legacy, Development Candidates, and Recruited Athletes whereby if your parents went there, are super rich and can donate $$$$, or play a Varsity sport at the school, they can get accepted with slightly lower GPA, course rigor, and test scores. (((But they are for the most part still A students who maybe took 5 APs instead of 10 and scored at the lower range of the middle 25% percentile of test scores like 1450 SAT/33 ACT))) The other caveat is if you are low-income, first-generation, and come from a BIPOC background. Ivys use affirmative action and often let such students in with lower stats similar to the 3 I mentioned.

Apologies if this came across frank and honest. There are many younger CV members on here who are perhaps not fully aware that getting in accepted into and IVY is getting harder and harder with record amounts of applications.