<p>^ agreed ... I'm old but ... it sounds like my HS had a very similar ranking system (no extra points for honors or AP and counted everything including cake electives) and I was ranked somewhere around 25% in my class ... and I, along with the other kids who took the tougher courses, blew the doors off the kids ranked higher than us who had easier schedules than us in regards to admissions to colleges ... and in my case, despite my "poor" class rank, my admissions far outpaced what was expected from looking at my stats ... so my class rank could not have been held against me too much. </p>
<p>Admissions are tougher than they were in my day ... but I'd like to think the schools are following the same principles and seeking out students who do well while seeking out academic challenges.</p>
<p>
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what's summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude? Are those American awards?
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<p>Google is your friend...</p>
<p>On the subject of Class Rank, I think the problem is more with the lack of weighting than anything else. Try and get your school to weight before you try and get it completely thrown out.</p>
<p>Um, I don't think you need to be worried about being banned from colleges. soozievt's (she's a member of CC) daughter I think did something similar, and I think she goes to Brown now.</p>
<p>Root Beer: In many schools that still have class rank, you can sign a waiver so that your class rank is not sent out on your transcript; The advantage to this is that if you are applying to a top school that seems to scream "we only accept top 10%", but also reports that 60% of their admitted students are accepted without class rank, you would fall into the latter category.....We have the same situation at our school and have been very unsuccessful in eliminating class rank; at the same time, our admit rates at competitive schools is dismal below that top 10% even with all honors and AP classes.....</p>
<p>Besides admissions, unweighted class rank also hurts chances for merit scholarships at schools that have certain requirements such as top 10%. Colleges can work around class rank in admissions, by either ignoring it or looking at the strength of a student's class schedule. But I don't see how financial aid departments that require a certain class rank (usually top 10% for the biggest scholarships) have any way of doing that.</p>
<p>Rodney - could you explain more about that waver? The universities im looking at (columbia) basically say over 70% of their accepted ppl have no class rank, which worries me o_O</p>
<p>Root Beer: You need to find out from your guidance office if there is a way to keep your class rank off of your transcript; In our local high school, it is like trying to find the Holy Grail, but we found out last year that there is a form you can sign to keep your class rank off of your official transcript for exactly the reasons you described. Before you try to eliminate class rank altogether (which is a great idea, but takes an enormous amount of time), try to get this waiver in place, if it isn't already there (but nobody knows about it).....You can definitely use the Columbia statistics as part of your argument for the waiver being created....FYI, I personally spent the spring and summer of 2005 trying to eliminate class rank at our high school, especially since we are the last holdout in our geographic area; To say that the doors were completely slammed in my face would be an understatement, even with 100 pages of documentation......</p>
<p>you should definitely try to get rank WEIGHTED. That's how it works at our school, and it seems to go pretty well. I think that's more realistic than getting it totally abolished anyway.</p>
<p>Anyways Ill ask some counselers/school administrators at my school when school begins next week, and if there is no waiver ill see about getting either that or getting grades weighted. Thanks for the advice everyone!</p>
<p>I hate my school too, no weighted GPA. The top 5% of our class are full of dumb asses. I tried my counlesor to change the GPA policy, but she said the shoool is "underfunded" to do a policy change. I call it BS. They are just being lazy.</p>
<p>lol I have a feeling my school might say the same, they keep hiking lunch prices to deal with enormous budget cuts. Every year they get rid of another 2 AP classes due to the fact they cant pay good teachers and so need to lower the rigor</p>
<p>Go to your school principal and school board and explain why you believe class ranking should be changed. Personally, I believe that ranking or, at least, honors level(magna cum laude) should take place, if there is justice in the system.</p>
<p>I think you should suggest weighting GPAs and you should circulate a petition regarding your request. You should also write that you want more AP classes in that petition. </p>
<p>It's unfair that your school's cutting AP classes. My school did that for 2 AP classes over the past 2 years because there wasn't enough demand for them(AP Music Theory and AP Art History. Luckily, I took AP Music Theory Sophomore year.</p>
<p>lol... ours is weighted. Our val only had like a 4.3 out of 5, though... and she didn't actually do the honors work. She just gets teachers to lie - one of those people. But in my class (why me???) we have three people (myself included) around 4.6, all vying for the top spot :( (I'm winning right now, though!)</p>
<p>Oh god, I just found out my school did have weighted GPA a few years ago but all the kids who took only college-prepatory/easy classes were complaining it was 'unfair', and as 80% of kids at our school dont take honors/AP, they won a overwhelming majority vote.....**** this might be hard</p>