<p>As as senior, my son is planning to apply to quite a few highly selective schools (Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt) this fall. He has a very strong GPA (4.97 of 5 unweighted, 5.61 weighted) and would have a very high class rank, however, our local school district has recently moved to a "no class rank" policy. </p>
<p>On previous posts, I see quite a few differing opinions on the importance of class ranks. Our local high school is strong academically, but from a college counseling perspective they do not give much guidance on the highly selective schools. </p>
<p>Is class rank important to the selection process at these schools? Should I be pushing the school/district to provide class rank? </p>
<p>As a secondary note, I understand the importance of extra curriculars, letters of rec, SAT/ACT/AP results, essays etc, I am simply trying to figure out if not having a class rank can make or break an applicants change of getting into a highly selective school. </p>
<p>Any thoughts would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Colleges consider class rank when it’s available, or in the case of the UCs, calculate their own class rank. If no class rank is published, colleges cannot consider it. Some of the most selective schools in the country including Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton report that less than 60% of accepted students submitted class rank. Many of the “top” private high schools also do not publish rank, and their graduates still manage to get into the best schools in the country, so your son should be fine. The guidance counselor will indicate that he took the most rigorous course load available and earned all As in them. </p>
<p>Btw, here’s Stanford’s CDS <a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications; Go to section C10 to see that only 37% of accepted students submitted their rank.</p>
<p>The only top school where the majority of students are likely to submit class rank is Rice, owing to its heavy Texas population (getting into the best state universities requires a certain rank, so almost every high school in Texas published that information)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t stress about the absence of class rank. I certainly wouldn’t push the school district to amend their policy. Class rank is only considered (at whatever level) if the information is available. The application contains more than enough information about the student for the admission committee to make a decision. Class rank may offer a picture of the high school curriculum and grading policy providing a context for the class rigor and grades.</p>
<p>
This is not true. Colleges infer a class rank from the HS Profile which is sent with the transcript.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it. Many HS have done away with class rank, because they believe it helps more students in the college admissions process than it hurts (the thinking was explicit ranking helped the handful of kids at the very top, but was disadvantageous to the next couple of tiers down, which include many more kids). That is in a way true, but colleges have adapted to ballpark where an applicant fits in class rank by looking at the deciles published in the school profile and interpolating, as well as by looking at the history of previous applicants from that HS to that college. I think they figure it out reasonably well.</p>