<p>Hi everyone, I'm new here so I apologize in advance if I'm not supposed to post this here but this forum seems like the best place.</p>
<p>I'm currently a junior. My school prints out transcripts every year and distributes them to students in the Spring as part of the process of choosing the next year's classes. And in the last two years, I've seen my class rank on the transcripts. However, apparently a couple years back the administration at my school decided not to rank graduating seniors, starting with my graduating class year (2011). The seniors this year, the class of 2010, will be the last ranked graduating class. When I graduate my rank will be "00" or "no rank." We will have no valedictorian, no salutatorian, no ranks whatsoever. </p>
<p>Several students, including myself are annoyed at this because we won't be able to say "I'm in the top 5%" or "I was the valedictorian" when applying to colleges (particularly UCs). Now I wouldn't have been the valedictorian even if the policy had stayed the same, but I'm still pretty high up on the list (15 out of 520 or so) and it would be nice to be able to say that I was in the top 5%. </p>
<p>So my question is this: is it worth going to the counselors to try and persuade them to keep the ranks? I can't think of any reason to abolish them, but maybe there's a good explanation for doing so. What do you think?</p>
<p>It wouldn’t hurt to try. My school doesn’t rank either, and I talked to my counselor and she was able to mention my class rank in an offhand remark in her letter of rec. </p>
<p>For UCs, I don’t think you mention your rank at all. They do send you an ELC number that shows you’re in the top 4%, so that shouldn’t be affected by your school’s policies. Hope that assuages your concerns.</p>
<p>Weird, my school did the exact same thing (same years, too)!</p>
<p>You could try, but it seems like it would be unlikely it would change. There was probably discussions/debates for eliminating it in the first place, and since they made the decision it seems unlikely they’d go back and chang eit</p>
<p>D’s was also the first class at her HS without ranking so it wasn’t exactly clear at first how they would handle it. Turned out they still publish GPA by decile, e.g. GPA of 3.9 to 4.2 is top 10%, 3.75 to 3.89 is 2nd 10 percent, etc. Maybe your school will still do something like this? </p>
<p>D was between the 3rd and 2nd decile, so her GC mentioned in his recommendation letter that she was in the top 25%.</p>
<p>Most admission offices can function without rankings. In the scheme of things they have to make comparisons both within an between high schools. A student in the top 5% of ABC High School might rank in the bottom 50% at a selective private high school.</p>