Does a rank of #1 out of 400 help more than “just” being in the top 5% or top 10% when applying to the super selective schools (Ivies, Stanford, Williams, Amherst, etc.)? I have talked to a couple of coaches that only cared about an athlete staying in the top 10%, but this question is for a non-athlete.
The situation is that, rightly or wrongly, our high school has a ranking system that can be gamed a bit. I think that D has a legitimate shot at being #1 or very close if she sets up her schedule to maximize class rank. If she doesn’t, enough other people will game the system that she can probably have straight A+'s and she is still looking at a rank of 10-20 (and that’s assuming mostly A+'s). She will definitely be able to stay top 10%, possibly top 5%. But #1-10 or so are not possible. Either way, she will have an exact class rank shown on her transcript, not a decile.
I know about holistic admissions, etc. But I don’t know if a #1 rank in a large school is something that looks impressive, or if from an admissions standpoint anything in the top 10% is equal.
Please assume that she will still get straight A’s and will still have a “most rigorous” schedule. This is mostly about being able to explore a couple difficult but interesting classes that aren’t weighted as heavily for the class rank GPA and being able to take PE with her friends and not taking it later with underclassmen. She may do it anyway, but we are just trying to decide if it matters. She will probably be an unhooked “average excellent” applicant. She should have excellent grades and test scores, and will have a few unique characteristics, but not URM, first gen, recruitable athlete, etc.
Thanks.
As more and more large public high schools no long rank kids a specific class rank would be significant, especially if your D’s school is a highly competitive one. By highly competitive I mean if the school routinely sends a dozen kids to the top schools you mentioned and if SAT/ACTs are 1600/36 for the highly ranked kids. A top class rank at a well known top school is certainly something selective schools care about.
Could she ask the counselors to find out what range of class ranks have been admitted to the colleges in question (for non-athlete/special applicants)?
There are 36,000 high schools, and easily more valedictorians and salutatorians than that, to at least double the number. There is not room for all of them in the most selective colleges. For tippy tops, it’s probsbly a good idea to assume that being in the top ten percent will suffice. They don’t fill their classes with Vals and Sals. Far from it. And admissions know that rank can be gamed,which is why many schools consider rigor in context with grades. It does not matter, except apparently in Texas, what rank she is.
At our school “gaming” it mostly it involves sliding a couple of freshmen requirements, like PE, to later years so that extra GPA weighted AP classes can be taken as a sophomore. Junior and senior years there is a hard cap of 4 AP’s per year, and unless you do some creative scheduling sophomores only get one AP. So rigor is actually increased over the normal “most rigorous” schedule, basically allowing you to squeeze in a couple extra AP classes as a sophomore.
I think I found a way to do it that won’t cause her many problems. She will exhaust the math classes offered at our school by the end of her junior year, but senior year she will have regular physics, AP Chem and AP Bio, so I don’t think it will look like she is slacking off by not taking a math class.
I am guessing that while #1 isn’t necessary, it may be a tipping point for otherwise equal applicants. She will probably have decent EC’s, just not the “cured cancer, published author” type ones. I am curious if there are other opinions.
@dadof4kids Careful…it won’t look like she is slacking but COULD look like she’s AP grabbing with 3 science. I’m assuming she has already taken Chemistry and Biology.
Good point but I’m not sure how to avoid it. Honors Bio and Regular chem are the prerequisites for the AP classes. So there is no way to take them without first taking Bio as a soph and Chem as a junior. Physics is not AP. She will also have AP English AP Spanish as a senior.
@dadof4kids That’s exactly why they will look at it that way. Top colleges want Chemistry, Physics and Biology…doesn’t have to be AP. It will look bad because she has already taken them so almost redundant. It will look as only taking them to boost gpa imo.
@dadof4kids Also have her take a DE or online math course senior year even though it won’t count towards her gpa it will show colleges rigor.
D20 goes to a school with 650-700 kids in each class. The GPA between val and sal this year was 0.001 weighted. The top 5% all made straight A’s (the difference in rank was the number of APs taken) and the top 10% were mostly A’s with a couple of B’s. The 10% had their accepted schools listed in the school newsletter, and all of them were either Ivies, similar top universities (i.e., WashU, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, UCLA), honors colleges in state flagships, or colleges that change lives with one exception - one is heading to NYC to try and make it on Broadway. This was out of 60-something kids, so even #60 still did rather well. I agree that unless you’re in Texas and trying to be a Longhorn or an Aggie, that class rank is a bit more ambiguous to everywhere else.
More specifically people are under the wrong impression about Valedictorians getting automatic admissions or great scholarships. Likely anywhere top 5-10 will have similar opportunities.
I would be a little suspicious of a class where the top 5% all got unweighted straight A’s.
Only 1 or 2 out of 650-700 do at our school. The hardest AP and IB classes, only a few kids get A’s. History of the America’s HK IB is a notorious 4.0 killer, as is HL Physics and Math.
Aren’t admissions decisions determined before the final class rank is finalized? D was #2 in her class, but this was not something included on her application. Based on the school profile, it was evident she was a top student but exact ranking was not possible until June.
@VickiSoCal My S’s current class of 604 has the top 40 kids with 4.0…now the weighted gpa is what separates them. @svlab112 You are correct almost every college admission(or application for that matter) is before final gpa is calculated.
Either your school has grade inflation or ours has grade deflation because that is a huge difference!
Out of almost 700 kids mine was around 50th at the beginning of Senior Year with 7 semester B’s, the rest A’s
I am assuming that the class rank that actually matters is at end of junior year or possibly middle of senior year, if that is available when you submit applications. The current class rank is shown on transcripts starting after the completion of sophomore year. Frankly I don’t care what final rank is.
I’m very aware that there is no automatic berth anywhere for a Valedictorian (we don’t live in Texas). But I’m trying to help her put together as compelling a package as possible. And unfortunately the choices she makes as soon as high school starts (class rigor, GPA boosters, EC’s) will have an impact. She is definitely smart and ambitious enough to make it on whatever level she chooses to compete at, so I am trying to help her set things up to keep all of her options open
I’m curious what advice anyone has about the AP Chem and Bio. As I said, the school has Honors Bio and regular Chem as prerequisites for the AP classes. I get that it looks a bit redundant, but I don’t think it is being taught that way. And for a premed/STEM focused student, I think that taking those classes will be beneficial.
AP Bio followed honors Bio even when I was in high school. No one worried about it being redundant.
@VickiSoCal Can’t give a definitive answer but other high schools in this county and neighboring counties seem to have the same. When looking at top students from high schools in the paper the top 10 were listed as to their college of choice and their gpa’s. All were 4.0uw.
As for taking AP Bio after, yes of course. The issue with his D’s is hoarding science classes to up the gpa. Most kids take honors Bio, Chem and Physics then 1 AP science senior year mostly in the area of their intended major(for example AP Physics for CS is preferred).
For the top schools you need to show four years of math, even if that means taking it at a community college in the summer or an extended class during the year. As for the original question, #1 or 2 could be a slght advantage than 5% or 10%, if the college knew you weren’t gaming the system by taking easier classes.
There are a few AP classes, imo, are the standard that AOs will look for to see rigor - AP Calc, APUSH, APLac/Lit, AP Chem, AP Physics, AP in a language. You don’t need all of them, as AP Physics is not as important if you don’t go into engineering, and AP in a language would be more important for non-stem. So AP Bio, AP Psych, AP Stats, etc. would be considered more fluffy courses to keep the GPA up.
I think there are 2 things that lead to many of the top students at our school having transcripts that seem a bit unusual.
- We have a block schedule system, where a full year class is compressed into one semester. Students take 4 classes in the fall, 4 different ones in the spring. A few classes are only 5 credits, so they end up being just single quarter classes. Because of this, some of D's friends (and the academic competition) are taking both Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 as freshmen. If they double up again as sophomores, they will take Spanish 4 and AP Spanish. My kids have taken geometry and algebra 2 both as freshmen.
- You are limited to 2 AP's per semester, and they are weighted fairly heavily. Generally the top juniors and seniors max this out. So if you want any more than what everyone in the top 10-20% is doing, you have to get them as a sophomore. AP Human Geography is open for Sophomores. Normally that's it, although I know a couple kids took AP Stats as sophomores this year, and I think if you were ready they would probably allow AP Spanish.
Sidenote: They took out a few of the “fluff” graduation requirements (a very basic computer class, health, etc.) starting with the freshmen this fall. In the past, those requirements kept down the numbers trying to double up things like math and language as a freshman and sophomore. Just in my daughter’s close circle of friends I think more incoming freshmen are doing this than did so in my son’s whole class of 400.
D will actually have 5 years of math, but will double up freshman and sophomore year.