<p>My class is about 600 students at a public high school with a large total enrollment of about 2,300. I am a good, not great student in my sophmore year with a 3.5 GPA, although that lands me a current class rank of 159, in the top quarter. I think this is because my school is in the upper tier of publics, rated as a silver medal school by US News. I know that class rank is definitely factored into college admission, although it seems like if a student exactly like me were at another school that wasn't as competitive, their GPA and rank would be much higher. Even my older sister, a senior with a 4.3 GPA, isn't in the top thirty. I know that the strength of your school and GPA sort of balance this out, but would it almost be a penalty to be in a harder school that covers you up?</p>
<p>“Harder” schools with lots of high achieving students tend to be those in more affluent places where students have more opportunities. Colleges expect more from such students. Your first line of competition is your classmates. </p>
<p>Take a school like Penn where 98% of those ranked were in the top 10% of their classs. This includes kids from all schools, includes recruited athletes, URMs and all hooked candidates.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for you, most schools are going to look at your rank in a competitive high school as a prediction of your abilities at a competitive college. I know families who have transferred their kids or moved to different school districts so their son or daughter could rank higher in a less competitive high school, and I’ve known families who did the opposite, transferred their kids to the best high school nearby, and then were upset because although their son/daughter was a good student, they weren’t competitive for a lot of schools because they weren’t in the top 10% or top 25% even. I think they’ll look at your GPA and test scores first, but it’s hard to imagine a situation where they won’t at least consider the rank as part of their decision process.</p>
<p>Academically strong high schools, such as yours, are recognized as such by selective colleges. Your application is more likely to get serious attention when you’re from such a school. Colleges compare you to like students in your school. They will often have a history of students who’ve they accepted from your school.</p>
<p>They don’t compare you directly to applicants from weaker high schools, where the coursework is not as rigorous, and where many students don’t go on to colleges. Often selective colleges may not have a history of accepting students from these schools, and they can’t easily measure the merit of a high GPA.</p>
<p>So, I think, you are fortunate to be in the school you’re in, and you’ll definitely have an advantage over most applicants from weaker schools, even though they may have higher GPAs than you.</p>
<p>^ Thanks fogcity and the other posters, it’s what I hoped to hear. I guess there are advantages and disadvantages to both, so I’ll try and do the best I can to try and stand out from the crowd. Fortunately, about a tenth of my high school’s graduating class that is going to college ends up going to Missouri-Columbia, and another large portion ends up at another in-state college. I already know that I’m not going to probably go in-state, so there probably won’t be too many applicants against me from my school or other schools similar to mine in the St. Louis area. Thanks for the responses, I’ve got a good idea of what I wanted to know.</p>