<p>How important is class rank in admissions decisions?</p>
<p>And is a rising class rank a good thing as well? (ex: freshman year I was in the bottom half, middle of soph I was 84/525, end of soph and currently I'm 39/505). </p>
<p>The current ranking puts me in the top 10% of my class, how much will this help me at more selective schools like UC Berkeley?</p>
<p>idk about berkely, but I would say class rank is quite important b/c it tells how you compare to other students.</p>
<p>I would also like to add that your rising rank helps (but idk how you could express that on your transcript)
Good job on raising it from 50% to <10%!!</p>
<p>I think the class rank/gpa/transcript is usually the most important factor.</p>
<p>When i apply to colleges in the future, should i play this up? Like in my essay's and stuff and make it one of my key attributes ? If so, how should i go about doing this? Like maybe mention it in an essay? or write it in additional info area?</p>
<p>uuh bump? ....................................</p>
<p>Ask your counselor to mention how much you are improving in his/her reccommendation(s), especially if something was going on in your life that might've affected your grades earlier. </p>
<p>Save your essays for things that can't be deduced from the grades, scores, and ECs. </p>
<p>Good job on the rising rank btw! :)</p>
<p>I think factors like class rank and GPA are actually very poor indicators of pure, raw, and true performance.</p>
<p>Score high on SATs and APs. Have dedication to a few extracurricular activities. Much more important than either class rank or GPA.</p>
<p>When I say this, I do not mean that class rank and GPA are unimportant. I simply feel that they are not THAT important.</p>
<p>athlonmj is right... gpa/transcript is most important. think of it this way: if you are ranked 1/75 what does that say? How about 70/750? The smaller the school, the more colleges take it with a grain of salt. The larger the school, the more seriously it may be taken. Then again, some schools don't even do class rank so colleges estimate based on the app pool they have gotten before from your school. So what they realy have to go on is what are your grades and are they grades in all/mostly/some/no challenging courses? That way, they can tell a little more about you then rank</p>
<p>I still believe that strong AP and SAT performance is more important than class rank and GPA.</p>
<p>Class rank is so subjective. GPA is more of a "have it, good" thing.</p>
<p>How is class rank subjective? Whoever gets the best grades is ranked first. GPA, after taking account what level classes are being taken, shows not only aptitude, but also hard work. No selective college wants a slacker on campus. AP tests are a good indicator, putting everyone in the country on the same level, but SATs don't show if you're a good writer, or a dedicated student, or if you can do calculus. They just prove that some people can beat the system. There's a reason a lot of colleges don't even require it anymore, and why it's getting overhauled this year.</p>
<p>Good class rank. I think that your rank is good, but it won't make you stand out in a good or bad way. A competitive school like UCB will want someone comfortably in the top 10% of their HS class, which you are. I think that your test scores will be a really important factor. And btw, 99% of the freshman class at UCB graduated in the top 10% of their HS class(got it from US news).</p>
<p>Rabo-
class rank can be very subjective. To start, some schools don't have weighted grades, so a person with zero APs/honors could be valedictorian. Then there are schools like mine. At my school we have weighted courses, but no electives or art classes are weighted, and if you take a college course for hs credit, it's unweighted as well. This means someone who gets all As with a full schedule that includes electives will have a lower GPA than someone who gets all As in, say, five honors courses, and then has a couple of off periods. That person wouldn't be taking the hardest courseload available, but they would still rank higher than the first person. Also, there can be variations in GPA/class rank due to things like the difficulty of a particular teacher compared to another.</p>
<p>My class will no longer put class rank on students' transcripts, since students can get higher ranks by</p>
<ol>
<li>Just taking easy classes.</li>
<li>By NOT taking unweighted classes. For example, 2 seniors who have same GPAs and class rank were taking 3 AP classes. But one has decided to take band, while the other didn't take any courses besides those three. As a result, they've both got straight A's on report card, but one who did NOT take the band got higher GPA and classrank, because the other took band, which is not weighted.</li>
</ol>
<p>Considering those stuffs (especially #2), is class rank really that important?</p>
<p>I agree with what Vegangirl said.</p>
<p>The graduating seniors at my school are the last class to have completely unweighted grades. The current juniors will be the first class to have weighted grades. Five percent for honors; ten percent for AP. This affects class rank only, not GPA.</p>
<p>Also, classes at Georgia Southern University are unweighted. This is semi-unfair. A class like college algebra or precalculus does not deserve to be weighted, but when you have a senior taking trigonometry and a senior taking ordinary differential equations, weight helps.</p>
<p>I took AP Calculus AB last year as a freshman and made a 100 average over four nine weeks. I held a 4.0 GPA. My class rank was six out of 450. I was the only freshman who took an AP class. Does this mean that those five other students are better than me? Maybe.</p>
<p>Ok, I see your points about class rank. My school never has that issue. We don't weight grades, and college classes don't even count, but somehow the people who don't take APs never do as well in regular classes as the AP kids anyway. The valedictorians are always (as far back as I can remember) the undisputed smartest kids.</p>
<p>I still maintain that your transcript/GPA is much more important and indicative of how successful you will be at college than the SATs.</p>
<p>I hate class rank becuase in order for me to stay in the top 10% i have to take 6 ap's senior year, (I don't really want to take that many, the most you can take senior yr.at my school, but I'll drop about 5% if I don't, and I can't afford to drop that much) I'm a huge fan of unweighted grades, even if it means someone can take all easy classes and be valedvictorian, on the other hand, I can barely move even if i mantain good grades, and it's a must for me, since i'll probably be a borderline canidate where they'll look at 1st semester to determine if i'm in or out</p>
<p>hey I do like that weighing by class rank only thing, not gpa, I think if ever there was a good system, that would be it, another problem w/ class rank, is all schools do it differently, so even though colleges claim it's fairer than gpa becuase it compares you to the rest of the class, it really isn't</p>
<p>well i just hope i can maintain my class rank or increase it before senior year</p>
<p>I am not a fan of class ranks, because it really depends on the school. (...and because my class rank isn't as good as it should be.) I don't think colleges should weight it so heavily in their admissions, but apparently they do.</p>
<p>grxkn, i feel your pain, at my school, uw (but w/ A+) #1 has a 4.238 and #2 has 4.235, and the rest of the class is exactly like that so there's basically no room for improvement at all</p>