<p>Harvard's common data set states that they don't take into account class rank in admissions...</p>
<p>It looks like this changed between 07-08 and 08-09... Am I reading this correctly?</p>
<p>Regardless of the answer to your question, would it really change your decision on whether or not you plan to apply to Harvard?
[Translation: Don’t worry about it.]</p>
<p>Class rank is merely indicative of one’s academic performance relative to others at the same school. Although this may provide indirect information about an individual’s academic ability, it is not the be-all-end-all/most important aspect of the application. At “strong” high schools, Harvard may extend acceptances to multiple students who apply. At “weak” high schools, the admissions dept. might not extend any acceptances at all.</p>
<p>I think it’s a little misleading to say Harvard doesn’t care about class rank, although that’s certainly one way to characterize it. As far as I can tell, Harvard doesn’t care particularly about what your school says your class rank is, unless you happen to go to a school whose class-ranking system Harvard understands and respects. Harvard absolutely does not want to discourage you from applying because you think your class rank isn’t high enough. But Harvard wants students who are “the best” at their schools, even if there is more than one student with a claim to being “best”, or best at something. At some point, unless the school’s class ranking system is completely useless, it’s going to be hard to argue that Student X is the “the best” when the school considers Students A-W better in the most important academic respects.</p>
<p>That point varies from school to school, obviously, and it’s sensitive to a particular student’s strengths. Harvard may well accept a math genius whose inability to get more than a C in French has seriously depressed his class rank. In my son’s high school class, Harvard (and Stanford) took the kid ranked #7, and not kids ranked #3, #5 (a URM), and #6, probably because the differences in GPA were small, and if you asked anyone they would have told you that #7 was the most brilliant kid in the class. Would they have taken the same kid if he had been ranked #20? Maybe, but based on a couple of decades of precedent probably not.</p>
<p>One reason Harvard ignores rank is that some students take the easiest courses available, thereby ending up getting ranked #1 in their class. (This is especially true at high schools that have unweighted grades where an ‘A’ in basket weaving is weighted the same as an ‘A’ in AP Calculus BC.) That is why your course rigor is paramount to Harvard.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the insight. @JHS: that makes me feel a bit better. There are some kids who go balistic with AP’s, but get a few B’s and aren’t necessarily the smartest kids in the class. On the other hand, a chunk of us are involved in activities like Student Council, which is not a weighted class, but a good class in it’s own right. And Honors Engineering (a class with no homework: it really isn’t hard core engineering) is weighted the same as AP Biology and AP Chemistry, so those on the engineering pathway get an added boost.</p>
<p>If there is one attribute which Harvard most prizes is that someone has been passionate about something and has achieved something significant in that area. As one admissions officer put it–Harvard is by and large not looking for well rounded students – it is looking for a well-rounded class with mostly oblong kids. Therefore the student who is a nationally recognized debater or the oboist who has played at Alice Tully Hall or the poet who has been published in Poetry or the Intel winner/finalist-- well, you get the drift-- such applicants will be looked with favor over the kid whose claim to fame is being valedictorian but without anything distinguishing about herself.<br>
Find whatever lights a spark for you and follow it as far as you can-- even if Harvard is not where you end up, you will be much happier and fulfilled than the drone who cares only about marks, rank in class and SAT scores.</p>
<p>Even at Harvard make the same choices-- take Math 55 or Mandarin or Physics 16 or Econ 1010 even if that means that the guaranteed A may not come your way-- what you want is an EDUCATION not a transcript. (If you just want a transcript please apply elsewhere, a Harvard education is too precious to waste on someone who is merely a grade grubber…even pre-meds worry too much–as a former Pre Med Committee chair at one of the Houses I can tell you that unless you really bomb you will get into medical school…)</p>
<p>Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about rank. Worry about how well you’re doing.</p>