<p>Hey!
I really really want to go to Yale, but I know that class rank is an important factor. My rank is 23/330, and it's really disappointing. People who get accepted to Yale are in the top ten of their class, forget the top ten percent! My GPA is 3.86 unweighted, and 4.41 weighted. </p>
<p>I just feel like this is bringing me down. I'm going to be a junior this coming year, and I am working very hard to bring this rank up. </p>
<p>If I do end up to be 23 by the time of applying to colleges, do you guys think that this will be a disadvantage? </p>
<p>They wouldn’t reject you because of your rank. 23/330 is still respectable. You just need to make yourself an attractive applicant in other areas, mostly with your ECs and essays, because those will always be the deal-breaker.</p>
<p>Oh i have the same issue, well I’m 180/800 is this bad? My unweighted GPA after sophmore year is a 3.975 and weighted is 4.06, but the problem is the cumulitive(?) GPA which means the averge GPA for the whole year so far. So freshamn and sophmore year which is a 3.6…(dont rem the rest) this is unweighted and the weighted is 3.9. ARGGH do colleges look at weighted or unweighted more and do you think its possible to improve for next year, since I’m taking AP and honors Junior year? thanks guys!! :)</p>
<p>hey FYIvyforever
I know that ivies look at unweighted GPA because the weighted GPA is different for every high school, whereas unweighted is the universal method.</p>
<p>AP classes have a higher weighted GPA count. So if you get an A+ in AP english, you will get the weighted amount of that class (in my school, it’s 5.7), but when calculating unweighted GPA, you will still get a 4. </p>
<p>I’m sorry if that doesn’t make sense…but I know that colleges look at unweighted GPA and yes it is possible to improve for next year if you are taking AP classes. </p>
<p>thanks for all your answers! And keep 'em comin :)</p>
<p>It really depends on the high school, Yale’s history with the high school, how the high school calculates class rank, etc. If class rank doesn’t take course difficulty into account (as is true many places), then it will be fairly unimportant for Yale admissions. (But I would predict that a school that ranked without regard to course difficulty is not a school that is sending a lot of students to Yale, unless it is a school where ALL the courses are considered challenging.)</p>
<p>If you are at a school that sends 15 kids to Yale a year, you probably don’t need to be in the top 10 or even the top 20. But the schools I know around here that may send one or two kids a year to Yale – yes, top 10 (or fewer) is a pretty practical cut-off.</p>
<p>I concur with everything JHS said, and I want to underscore one point. Context is so important in determining how much class rank (or GPA or scores) matters to any school. If your school uses Naviance, look at the Naviance scattergrams for past classes to assess your grades and scores in the context of students who were admitted to Yale and its peer schools. Our local public high school, which is excellent, typically gets only 1-3 kids into each of H and Y each year. All of the unhooked students admitted to Yale over the last several cycles have been val or sal with either a 35 or a 36 ACT composite. Kids with hooks (typically recruited athletes) got in with significantly lower grades and scores.</p>
<p>Yale (and all the Ivies) are looking for excellence and academic commitment. Class rank is one means of measuring those qualities but not the only one. Do well (or well enough) on your standardized tests, write great essays and spend your spare time doing things that you are truly passionate about and you should have a fair chance.</p>