<p>Most Ivy Colleges I have looked at just list statistics about most of their students being in the top 10% of their high school classes. I was wondering if it's true that generally only valedictorians and salutatorians get into ivy league colleges if they don't play sports well or have some amazing talent. Will a rank in the top 5% still be acceptable at any of these schools?</p>
<p>I don’t see why that’s necessarily true. I know a student who was accepted to Wharton and who definitely didn’t rank in the top 10% or do something insanely amazing (this was ED, but still.)</p>
<p>Haha no, that’s not true at all. Top 5% is outstanding and is fine for any of these schools. You do not need to be at the top of your class to get into an Ivy, its a holistic application process.</p>
<p>Yep, top 5% is fine. Of course, there ARE a lot of valedictorians who get in… :/</p>
<p>My school does not even rank. We got several to Ivies.
Penn, Penn, Penn, Harvard, Brown (salutatorian), Yale</p>
<p>The valedictorian applied to Yale but did not get in, even though a lower-ranked person did. (Val is now at Georgetown.)</p>
<p>It doesn’t rank but you know who the val and sal are, and that a “lower-ranked” person got into Yale? Haha</p>
<p>You think my rank is bad?
85/950</p>
<p>yea it’s top 10%…but it doesn’t look good- no way close to top 5 %=,=
I’m not aiming at TOP ivies like Princeton or Harvard. I only applied to Cornell CALS.
btw, you think my rank is bad for NYU CAS and USC?</p>
<p>thank you for the feedback! I’m hoping my rank will be good enough to help me get into some good schools!</p>
<p>The problem with class rank is that certain schools are different sizes. So a private school with only 100 students will rank differently because you have to be in the top 10 to rank 10%. But at school with 800 students, the rank will be way higher because there are also a lot of not good students.</p>
<p>Your transcript is more important.</p>
<p>How can one grade have close to 1000 students?</p>
<p>^Its very possible. My school used to have ~1000 per class before some other high schools opened up in the same area.</p>
<p>That’s bigger than my whole school lol. & I thought my class was big</p>
<p>spanglish- yeah. the school doesn’t rank, but they DO tell us who the Sal and Val are. So I inferred that the girl who got into Yale was lower rank because she was neither val nor sal. Of course, I don’t know… maybe she was third? But I don’t think she was.</p>
<p>OP: You should just worry about getting the best grades you can. Then let everything fall into place.</p>
<p>so anywhere in top 5% is definitely sufficient for HYPS?</p>
<p>You can get in, no doubt.</p>
<p>Just realize that that would be a weaker part of your app. However, being around 5% and actually doing worthwhile EC’s, having a good SAT score, etc is better than not having those and being val.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about only being the 5%… just make sure your other parts of your app are up to par.</p>