St Johns Admission

I understand that St Johns is an extremly rigorous school, and I'm applying to it for 9th grade. I got an 6 for verbal reasoning and 9 for everything else on the ISEE. I think that's like decent score for St Johns but I've seen forums from 2013 that says you need absolute all 9s to even get considered. Idk if anyone has been accepted or tried applying. I've also gotten decent results from public speaking tournaments and debate tournaments along with soccer tournaments and cello competitions. I've also done Scioly for a year.I've also heard that you need connections to the school (e.g siblings and parents) which I don't have any. Are my chances really slim at this point? Some even say theres only 25 spots admitted, which I'm really worried about