I am not certain that GPA, class rank, and standardized testing scores are the best way to judge the strongest/best/most passionate/interesting students. Life is a lot messier than that and thank goodness it is. I wouldn’t want to live in a world - or learn in a classroom - full of just 4.0 GPA 1600 SAT-scorers who share the same experiences, same educational background, and sets of easily quantifiable achievement. How boring that would be.
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Best school in region hands down.
Checked, top 125 high schools nationwide… almost impossible to compare.
So…
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If the 17th ranked kid isn’t able to get into a top school, your best-school-in-the-region sounds kind like the prom queen of the trucking school. It must be a really weak region or in an underrepresented state. . A rigorous, respected private school will have many kids attending top schools, including #17.
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You are making a large number of politicizing assertions with exactly zero evidence. Perhaps you are taking out your frustration about your recent thread closure here. But I’m not seeing how this emotionally-charged argumentation is any more effective.
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Yeah, so, my point is… if my kid is #1, from a top 125 rank HS, has no stress doing this, and it DOESN’T hurt his chances, can we at least all agree since SAT/GPA nothing matters at all… that being CR1 wouldn’t hurt one’s chances… and there’s no stress, they are just raised in family that focuses on church, country, family, school, arts, athletics… in that order, and they are just a decent human… that taking away a CR1 spot, and there’s again no stress or any psycho parenting nut job stuff going on… it is in fact not fair?
I also think, I was ranked like 33rd out of an awful high school, was hit hard in college… and being told I wouldn’t cut it made me (and was proof to me) that I needed to work harder.
This response from Vac2672 is a nice balance to the universe.
well, 17 through 33 are getting into the likes EA to UM, G’Town, etc. … so not top tier… but top25 I think.
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So, it’s likely the school wants to convey that message (top private) by abandoning something most top private schools have abandonned long ago.
Please note that eliminating precise ranking does NOT mean eliminating rigor, deciles, or school profile. However it allows the school to focus on what the most selective colleges find meaningful while focusing the students on other things than ranks decided by decimals.
(The assumption, also, is that smart, hard working students should not be studying because they’ll get a rank out of it but because they want to learn/improve their skills&knowledge/know they need a foundation for sth they’ll be learning later on…)
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If it’s such an elite school, class ranking actually does a disservice to its reputation in addition to providing a metric that is simply meaningless to college admissions officers. I hope you can shift your mindset to see this as an action that will increase this school’s reputation and, by extension, the externally recognized value of your children’s education there.
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UM and G’Town ARE top tier. 
Glad it’s not “#17 can’t get into the state flagship” 
The school didn’t decide this against your kid. If s/he’s a very strong student it’ll be apparent through the school profile. However it DOES matter for the school and its reputation, which in turn enhance all students’ applications (including your child’s, though it sounds like they didn’t need it).
Another meaningful “metric” is in the college counselor’s LOR: “Alice is one of the best students in the past 4 or 5 years”, “Dustin is extraordinary even compared to students who graduated from Z Academy in the past 10 years”…
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FAIR ENOUGH!!!
I appreciate the view point.
It’s clear I’m raised old fashioned… and, an academic institution removing CR… is like removing the scoreboard from and NFL stadium…
To me its in the same category as remote work. Yikes!
Again maybe no stress for your children, and that’s great, but I see you list your primary loyalty to your church, also great, but wouldn’t your church preach compassion and empathy for others? And wouldn’t that extend to the kids who are experiencing significant anxiety and depression over things like competing against their classmates for the highest class rank especially when, as many have pointed out, it really takes nothing tangible away from your own kids who clearly have the GPA and rigor necessary to be highly competitive for the top school even without this CR1 footnote to a more robust (hopefully!) application? What has your kid really lost? Another feather in the cap? It sounds like he already has many of those. So why not make school a somewhat friendlier environment by not pitting kids against each other in this way?
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Sorry, I was meaning to dispute the nonsense.
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School is very friendly. There is nothing cut throat about it. That’s the point is all of these comments about stress and cut throat… simply don’t apply. They have no basis.
Here is a student perspective - and one which lays out some facts - from a few years ago, in case anyone is interested:
That’s wonderful to hear and I am glad that is the case for your family. So how did the school then explain this change? What was the reasoning they gave? I am sure it was not a flippant decision, so I wonder how they came to it?
Edited to add: My bad, I see you did address that in your original post.
Sounds like it’s more an issue of “adopting best practices/measuring up to our national competition” than a “qualify of life” issue then.
(It might help if you think of it as the scoreboard being the whole team’s results - ie., none of the players are ranked on the scoreboard, but the team’s results are there for all to see. The whole team has to play well to win, individual players also. And there may be an MVP… or two… but this won’t be on the scoreboard. It’ll be announced and awarded separately. The team = the school.)
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I cannot answer… there was no good response or response at all… and if I reply it will turn into a political rant. I’m going to stop replying to this thread (not of your doing) but it seems clear to me what’s what.
Not from the top five students in son’s class… #2,3,4,5 … all said cool, good job… can we get together to study for the final? (i.e. sharing notes, etc.)
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It seems as if maybe you wanted to hear answers supporting your stance, but aren’t liking it when many people who are highly experienced in college admissions are all saying the same thing…unless you live in a state where ranking matters for access to the public colleges, class rank doesn’t play a large role in holistic admissions decisions.
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Likely. And, reverting back to not responding.
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