<p>So I've heard for most really competitive colleges, if you're in the top 10% of your class then you're fine. </p>
<p>But for me, my rank is roughly 20/520. Thats within the top 5 percent, which is a lot better. The thing is, even though being in the top 5% is good, this means there are 19 people who have better grades than me, and that's sort of unnerving. </p>
<p>I'm sure that those 19 kids are going to be applying to some of the same schools I am and that's got me worried. Even if they don't, doesn't it look bad to some really competitive schools if that many people are ahead of you? When they say top 10%, do they really mean top 10%? </p>
<p>I have a high percentile but comparatively low rank. How does this play out for me? I know that other factors are taken into consideration besides rank but rank is still very important, isn't it? </p>
<p>And if it helps, I go to a decent public school. From the seniors I know (which isn't a lot, so there may be more) we have 5+ ivy headers. My grade is pretty divided between the top 60 or so students which are really competitive and the rest of the grade which is made up a lot of ESOL students who can't speak English and slackers (not saying that ESOL students are slackers).</p>
<p>You don't have a low rank. The chances are that the top 5% all have very similar GPAs within a small range. Rank is more important at small schools, where one or two spots makes a huge difference. My rank was 32, but my grade only had 177 kids. That put me at the 18.5%, but I still got into a good school. I think you are fine in the top 5%.</p>
<p>My school doesn't have rankings per se but there are 10 people ahead of me for sure (10 valedictorians). Didn't hurt me to be "just top 10%"; a bunch of the valedictorians applied for the same spots I was applying for and didn't get in.</p>
<p>In short, don't worry about it because it's not really anything you could change anymore. Focus more on the things you do have control over :)</p>
<p>The top 10% thing is purely myth. If you take a close look, unless your school is exceptional, you'll need to be top1 or 2 for an acceptance at an ivy if you're not ecxeptional in some other way. Even then, all ivies other than PC reject the majority of val and sal applicants.</p>
<p>Sorry grade inflation, but take another look. Colleges publish their number of vals and sals and they have a huge advantage, ENORMOUS, over #8 at a typical school.</p>
<p>^ Unless you go to a very competative school, then it is not so bad. I am ranked number 9 out of 205, but our school is ranked in the top 50 High Schools according to Newsweek. Also, rank as important as the rigor of your classes. I will be getting my IB Diploma a year early and took 8 HS classes before I even entered HS itself. That, I think, and only if admission officers have any brains at all, is much more impressive than a sal who is taking simple, grade level classes. Or maybe I am just naive?</p>
<p>personally, my brothers had lowish ranks at a big, but uber-competitive, hs...top 10% and certainly "smart" but not top of class, #1 or even #30/600 or so. both went to ivies.</p>
<p>Just a thought: when considering the statistical "advantage" of sals\vals, you have to take the caliber of student that becomes sal\val into account. I'm sure that the average valedictorian's app is better overall than the average #8 in areas besides class rank. Heck, they could even be less than .05 apart in GPA at some schools, so sals\vals don't even necessarily have that much better grades, especially UW. The effect of class rank alone can't be properly measured by comparing sal\val acceptances to #8s, I think.</p>
<p>My son's class rank dropped by about 6 percentage points from freshman year to senior year although his numerical rank remained about the same. The same kids stayed ahead of him but the kids on the low end of the scale dropped out of school, about 60 of them. Fortunately, it didn't effect him as far as getting into the school he wanted to go to, but it was kind of surprising when it dropped that much for something that he had no control over.</p>
<p>Izzie, same here. My class ranked floated around 30-32, but the class dropped from 200+ to 177 at my senior year. I dropped from the 15th percentile to the 18th percentile, but it didn't make a difference.</p>