Difficulty getting published in top tier journals?
I've co-authored a paper on a top-journal. The first author was a PhD student. The paper was so strong that it was even on the cover page of the journal.

That was the first paper for both the first author and myself.

But ...


The paper was authorised very closely with some experts in the field. Those experts knew exactly what to write, what to analyze and what not to do. It's a domain knowledge that a student wouldn't possibly have. They knew how to conduct a good research project.
We wouldn't been able to publish to the journal without the experts.
The study was indeed interesting, and attempted to solve some very practical problems. Thus, it was not something you read and throw away. It would cause impacts to the field.
We had softwares, web sites, cool graphics to backup the paper.
There was nothing special in the statistics and methods. Absolutely nothing new. But how it was analyzed was simple to follow and solid. Again, the experts knew exactly how and what to do.


You have better chance if your study attempts to solve important questions. Talk to a professor if you need advice.

Unfortunately I don't see you have much chance if you don't have anything truly interesting.