Class Rank vs. GPA

<p>On a ppt created by a couple of HS students accepted into Ivy LEague univesrities, they claim that class percentile is more important than GPA. Is that true and if it is, why? If not, why?</p>

<p>Rank is king. A 4.0 means very different things at different schools.</p>

<p>but very different schools also have vastly varying degrees of competitivenesss…</p>

<p>I agree with hmom5 since my class rank is high and GPA is low.</p>

<p>^ you agree with hmom5 since it makes you feel better about yourself?</p>

<p>If you have a bad GPA, ranking is discounted. Other than that, like hmom5 said, “Ranking is king.”</p>

<p>It’s interesting to note, however, that class rank is not considered at Harvard.</p>

<p>@NWdivisionCHAMPS - no, not really I was being sarcastic.</p>

<p>But i’m in the Top 5 of my class at my school and my GPA is around 3.75, so I feel slightly better that schools consider class rank more than GPA.</p>

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<p>Sure, yet half the class were vals. This goes under my favorite heading: adcom say the darndest things.</p>

<p>At the same time… class rank is ridiculous to me. I have a 3.98 gpa (3 A- from soph/fresh year) so my rank is 15. 1 A- is from a PE class… I dont think having 3 A- instead of A’s really says how smart I am compared to those in my class with 4.0’s</p>

<p>i don’t see how rank can tell if the school is competitive, well maybe my case is just special. I go to an academy that is within a larger high school, so for class rank everyone is together. Now of course the kids in the academy have higher GPA’s than most of the normal school, so is that just a boon for me. I am currently as a junior ranked 3 out of 596 students, i know the kid that is ranked 384, he has a 2.4. In this case is rank really all that revealing.</p>

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<p>Haha. What else falls under this heading?</p>

<p>“If youi have a bad GPA, ranking is discounted.” What do you mean?</p>

<p>And which is more important: the numerical ranking itself (1/400) or percentile (top 5%)?</p>

<p>this pains me to say this, but hmom5 is right, for the first time.</p>

<p>I had always heard that top 10% matters, so I really wanted to have the stats for that ranking. My rank ended up being 43/400, but my gpa was 92.26uw and 105.79w. (10.97%) I think? While my school isn’t the most competitive, this year the top fifty kids were really competitive with each other. Will the adcoms discount me because I’m not in the top 10%?</p>

<p>I believe class rank is weighed more heavily than GPA because the rank is the comparison of you to the others at your school. No matter how hard or easy the particular school is, if you rank in the top 3 students - over the 4 years you were in high school, you consistently performed better than your peers.</p>

<p>GPA is an individual accomplishment.</p>

<p>Class rank as in percentile (top 10%) or actual numerical ranking? is more important then GPA?</p>

<p>The only reason I pick class rank over GPA is because like hmom5 said, GPA means different things at different schools, while class rank can be used to place you in the context of your school. A 4.0 can be Valedictorian at one school, and in another school that might not even cut it for top 10%.</p>

<p>But if the class is ranked based on unweighted GPA, the rank can be easily manipulated and extremely misleading. Students who avoid the school’s toughest classes can have GPAs and ranks higher than students taking all AP classes.</p>

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<p>That is very true. Take the weights off, a girl who is in all regular level classes is #1 at my school (and I move down to #2). But because IB is so much more work, I get the weighted grades. In my mind, It really is only fair.</p>