I appreciate your honest and thoughtful advice,

The one caveat I might throw out there is the fact that I'm just wrapping up my sophomore year, so the list isn't fully comprehensive by this point in time. Moreover, I'm looking to develop my spike throughout or the summer after Junior year.

The nature of the startup idea is not prone to investment/revenue, as its more of a nonprofit organizaiton of-sorts. You're welcome to PM for more specific details, but other than that, I definitely resonnate with the fact that there really isn't any stand-out extracurricular which goes above the rest.

I am hoping in the least that some of the "Cornell/Vandy/Brown," level schools show leniancy towards the fact that my high school is quite trashy. I know that comment may rub off a bit of arrogance, but in a class of over 600 students, there are maybe 1-4 yields to top 50 schools. Last year, the most impressive college admit was Northwestern from what I remember, and that isn't saying all too much in such a large class. There isn't as much of a culture for extraucurricular excellence, so a spike-ish project like a full-blown invention or research portfolio isn't as possible given A) the unwillingness of classmates to collaborate on such a high-stakes event and B) the lack of funds our school district has (no lab equipment, my former middle school just shut down to inability to maintain building, etc.)

I think you did raise a valuable point with the fact that Penn M&T, MET, MIT, and so-fourth are perhaps out of my range. Would my ED be better invested at a school like Brown where the early admissions acceptance rate is higher (~20%)?

Thanks