Starting with the class of '15 my school stopped doing class ranks. My school is ranked fourth most challenging in my state and there are people with insane GPA’s and two students at least that I know of who have gotten a perfect score on the ACT. When applying to colleges, don’t they expect a class rank? What will I give them if I have no idea where I stand within my class?
Many high schools don’t provide rank. Just leave that field blank.
From what I read from a lot of posts, give them a predicted class rank, it will increase your chances on college applications.
If your school doesn’t rank, you have no rank. I strongly advise against making one up. Most elite private schools do not rank. Are you in Texas, California, or another state that guarantees admission to a public university to a certain percentage of students? If so, your high school should be able to communicate your position to any relevant colleges. That might be true for some scholarships, also. Otherwise, I think class rank is somewhat overrated. Colleges seek academic rigor above all else, and high schools rank differently. If a school includes all classes, and uses an unweighted GPA, colleges will prefer the student who took the “most demanding available” courseload. If you are #10 in your class, with no impressive extracurricular activities and mediocre test scores, you are not likely to be accepted over #15 with perfect scores, #20 who’s an all-state quarterback, or #30 whose grandfather gave $10 million to the college. In the most competitive public high schools, furthermore, the differences between the top 50 students in a class is probably infinitesimal, coming down to a single Math test or Science project grade. Ask your counselor, if you are applying to colleges where rank plays an important, quantifiable role in admissions or scholarship awards. If your counselor can’t answer your question, it is perfectly reasonable to contact admissions offices at the specific colleges with this question. They deal with schools who don’t rank all the time. The admissions office at Berkeley explicitly stated at our group tour that they have drawers full of school profiles, and will contact a high school directly if they have a question (the UCs don’t accept letters of recommendation or school profiles with their application).
Don’t worry about filling in rank if you don’t have one. Colleges will infer one based on your transcript and your HS profile which will be sent from the school.