Hi, My D22 is talking to college coaches for her sport and some have requested her transcripts. We were surprised when we saw her class rank since her stats are very good. 4.4 weighted gpa, 3.9 unweighted (all honors and AP) but she is only in the top 33% ( 134 out of 395) of her class because her high school is very very competitive. When you look at the scholarship options at many schools she has all the stats but is not in the top 10%. Is the competitive nature of the school and her class rigor (all honors and AP) considered? Or is she totally shut out of these scholarship options because she’s not in the top 10%.
There may be some that use class rank but most, to my knowledge, use GPA and possibly test scores. Good luck
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My daughter’s school used class rank as part of the merit grid (rank, gpa, test score), but not all schools rank any more and I think it was a minor part of the formula.
If a school has 1/3 of the class with 4.0’s or above, it might mean that it’s a high performing school or it can mean there is grade inflation. It will help the student against students from other schools where there is not grade inflation, or at a school that uses 4.0 as a cut off, no matter what courses the student took.
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Thank you for the replies. It should be interesting since she’s looking for a lot of merit aid. We won’t qualify for financial aid and she’s thinking of medical school, so we’re not taking on any debt for undergrad. Her high school is the number 1 school in the state, so its quite the competitive pressure cooker!
It sounds like you are expecting athletic money along with merit? It’s unlikely you’d get need based aid with athletic money anyway (the coach has to count the need based aid with athletic aid, so most won’t allow both).
Talk to the coach (or someone in FA who knows about athletic aid). They are very good at finding grants you can accept and getting you the funds you can accept. I had one person who really help us by applying the funds in the best order for my daughter. She left and for my daughter’s senior year she got about $1000 less, just because of the order the grants were applied.
Hi! We are looking at D3 schools only and there isn’t any athletic aid offered. That is why we are focused on academic/merit aid. We won’t qualify for financial aid. We are in that sweet spot of making too much money to qualify but not making enough to pay $70k a year. We have some savings for college and hope to get costs down to $30k or so and have focused on schools that offer merit. I’ve been seeing some stats for grants/scholarships and they usually have class rank in there…who knows what’s going to happen with test scores. Thanks!
@Trishaluna We are in a similar situation. Class rank is considered by some schools, but to varying degrees. If you visit College Data (cannot insert link) and visit each school of interest you can see how much weight they give class rank under the Admissions tab.
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@Teachme21 it sounds like you are referring to Class Rank’s consideration in admissions. Not necessarily for Merit Aid.
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What spurred my questions is that we saw that someone posted the stats for merit aid at Gettsyburg ( a college she’s talking to) and they all had class rank at top 10% listed for each scholarship. It hit me that she may not qualify at some schools because her high school is so crazy competitive. I do believe that Gettysburg is now not including tests scores for '20, '21 and '22s
One of the moderators pointed out to me that the class rank info on College Data is for acceptance not merit aid.
It can actually work against athletes at D3 schools to get merit if they don’t meet all the requirements for the scholarship. If the school requires top 10%, I think they’d be reluctant to give it to a student athlete who isn’t in that top 10%. They don’t want to show favoritism to athlete.
If it is not a requirement to be in the top 10%, then they might consider course rigger.
I would say this definitely varies by school; 2 of D20’s merit offers had a top 10% requirement, the others did not say. She too was from a top public hs, with a large concentration of high stat kids (tech field relo city, so high performing parents). I’m not sure schools really had a grasp on what to look at this year due to so many test optional applicants; some schools are still requiring test scores for top merit. It will be interesting to see how merit works out during covid. Not sure what sport, but there are so many people on CC who’ve been through this process, they may be able to offer suggestions of other D3 schools with great merit. Does she want to go to a small LAC; is she looking at D3 just to continue competing in her sport?
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My D applied to a large number of scholarships. Many required a high class rank, (top 10% or top 5% usually) and you wouldn’t be considered for those.
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Yes we are looking at small LACs but only ones that we know offer merit aid. D3 is where she is best to be recruited. I just found a stat sheet for her high school and its in line with her stats - 4.4 is in the top 30%. Top 10% = 4.68-4.57, top 20% is 4.56 - 4.45.
The median GPA for 2018-2019 is 4.02.
If you give everyone an idea of region, sport, budget and major, we may be able to offer some suggestions. Does her club team have a coach with good contacts for introductions/recruiting? Our club as a whole fed into several D2/D3s, who were looking to snatch up those who didn’t go D1 and would usually offer some pretty good grant/merit packages, even to kids with “lower” stats. Schools like Centre, Lees MCrea, Barton, Wingate, Gardner-Webb… there are schools like this in every region, so it may be a matter of expanding your search to find the right fit.
It’s fewer than half of US high schools that report rank anymore, so not sure many colleges take rank into account when disbursing merit aid (unless it’s for a specific scholarship that requires X rank, as noted above).
Your biggest challenge will be finding schools with a budget of $30K. That requires a very sizable scholarship, when starting with COAs of $65K+.
Has your D taken an ACT/SAT yet? I would make a testing plan (e.g., spring and summer), and prep to get a high score.
Make sure to have at least one affordable safety school, whether she would play her sport there, or not. What is your home state?
Hi,
We’re in NC. We have a list of about 30 schools that she would fit into the athletic recruit profile and she is in the top of the pool for accepted student’s academics, thus making it easier to get merit. We’ve had some conversations with schools like Wesleyan and Washington and Lee etc but they do such little aid and/or are sooo competitive they really are reaches and my daughter understands this. We’re not looking at many D2 schools, although she’s talked to a couple who are local. We’ve been doing studying for the ACT/SAT already. She has a tutor she meets with 1x a week that works on that. We do have help with recruiting from her club. It’s the nitty gritty merit aid part that is outside the wheelhouse of most club recruiting staff. I do know that looking at getting $30k or so in merit aid is a lot so that is why we’re concentrating on schools where she would be at the top of their academic pool. So we’re looking at mid-level LACs. Schools like St Lawrence, Skidmore, Rhodes, Macalester etc. All of these schools do offer generous merit aid to qualified students. As I said, we also have some reaches as well but are realistic about the possibility of not getting the aid we need. We have some safety state schools where she could play club but they are all D1 she is not D1 material (height/athleticism -she’s a volleyball player).
Oh, forgot to add, she will be a biology major and has aspirations of going to med school, hence the fact that we will NOT take any debt on now for undergrad. There are some great D3 schools with pre-med advisory programs ie Rhodes, Goucher, Juanita etc. She likes the idea of a small LAC even though it may be smaller than her high school because she knows that for med school or even just a masters degree, she will be attending a large research U at some point in her life. Also, she is so passionate about playing her sport and can’t imagine not being competitive, that she has focused on these smaller LAC schools.
Small schools with good merit aid (at least as of 3 years ago): Connecticut College, Hobart, Lewis & Clark.
Schools that have similar profiles but I have no experience with: Union, Furman, Sewanee, Trinity (CT), Kenyon, Denison, Oberlin.
I don’t think Skidmore offers $30,000 in merit aid, but of course you don’t know until you apply.
Good luck!
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Thanks! Trinity in CT offers very little aid and lately Sewanee has gotten very stingy with aid as well. Lewis and Clark were on her list but she wasn’t keen on being all the way on the west coast. We have a friend who’s son played a sport at Skidmore and he received about $32k a year in merit and work study. Thanks!!