<p>class rank is absolute bs in my opinion. there are so many variables in your hs performance that cant be quantified nor equated. the difficulty of classes is completely variable and relative for example and the way my school does rank is even more bs. there are so many things wrong with the system a couldnt possibly list them all. for instance the more classes you take the higher your rank will be, so if you completely fill your schedule and dont even take a lunch period you will move up in rank (how can anyone advocate 6.5 hrs of school without a lunch as healthy?). other shortcomings include the weight of music classes often brings down the best students, science lab periods dont recieve a grade and thus dont count for rank which deflates your rank, etc., etc. then what about all the variables such as extracurricular activities, community service, etc.</p>
<p>dont think im jus steaming at a system that hurt me either, i still had a good rank (top 5%) but i jus think the whole idea of ranking is ridiculous</p>
<p>I think class rank is a good idea gone horribly awry. I am 10th in my class. Most of the people who were above me took 4 years of Ag/Mechanics/Shop/Greenhouse, 4 years of Home Ec/Infant Development/Food & Nutrition, 4 years of Choir, etc. and skipped over Physics, Calculus, AP English, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Rank calculation can certainly be improved. I'm happy that my school at least gives enough weight to APs that nobody in the top 50 or so has a GPA below 4.0. However, there are a good deal of outright problems. For one, my school gives the option of taking only 6 of 7 periods. Since most of the top students' core classes were weighted 4.5 to an A, those taking the extra elective and time (a good thing) were penalized somewhat.</p>
<p>This doesn't nearly account for all the other variables, namely different teachers. A college can see if you took a bunch of ECs and thus balanced your time out, rather than devoting everything to academics. It cannot see, however, that some classes/teachers are a ajoke at your school. AP Calc is 5x harder than AP Stat--both are weighted the same. My school has two teachers for Geometry and two for Precalc. In both cases there is one ridiculously easy teacher and one ridiculously hard. Not only are they weighted the same, but the exact same course description shows up. Idiotic.</p>
<p>If nothing else, schools should provide the option to omit grades from your transcript--if and only if you have an A in the class. I find it ridiculous that taking band and an independent study actually hurts me despite having A's for both. Same with Gym/Health/Driver's Ed and foreign language.</p>
<p>I think class rank is a bad idea. We don't have it at my school, thank god!! Actually, for the US "class rank" section of the school reports, our gc's have a very methodical way of calculating our %ile. "Oh so you're in IB. Is your average about 94?" Automatic Top 1%. But to be fair we only have about 10 of those in a class of 650+. Not bad.</p>
<p>I'm afraid to see what the competition would be like here if we had class ranks. Our school already has a lot of very studious IB kids, and I'd hate to see the ones who have ec's (like myself), give some of them up to study more (you can only take 6 IB classes, thank god!). Also I think it would have a detrimental effect on the quality of our athletic, drama, and music departments, which are fantastic the way they are.</p>
<p>Our local high school is moving to eliminate class rank. It's a smallish school
with a total of about less than 750 students. I kind of get the negative
aspects of maintaining class rank - but aren't there any positives?
Does it matter in any way - oneway or the other - when applying to selective
or highly selective colleges? Does a lack of a ranking "hurt" any segment
of the student population down the road, or could it potentially do so?
Just wondering.</p>
<p>At my school, class rank can ne motivational and friendly competition, but we don't generally pay that much attention to it. I definitely think it should be abolished because some people who work with awesome dedication are not ranked as highly as others. It can obviously hurt your academic profile on college applications if you're not ranked that high. As long as a counselor can give some relative indication of what percentile you're in, I think that will be better and advantageous for all people who are in the top 10, let's say.</p>
<p>Just about all schools rank, but colleges do not see it unless the school decides to release it. There are many schools out there that have the designation 'No Rank" because they choose not to release the rankings-they are only shown inside the school.
I find class rank using GPAs to be somewhat worthless, because there are some that have not done well in one year or semester and get hurt come time for admissions. I also don't like it because it creates the need to be a perfectionist, something rarely allowed in later stages of life. I absolutely hate class rank based on exact percentages or those without weights, because it creates needless worrying-there is zero room for error as every little assignment has to be perfect in order to increase ranking. Ranking systems without weights allow those who don't take anything but remedial or so-called College Prep classes to maintain the same rank as a student with 21 APs, even though the AP student has done far more work and usually has been graded to a far higher standard.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the high school will abandon ranking students
completely if this proposal is approved by our local school board.
There will be no internal ranking and therefore no ranking available to
a college if it requests it. I'm told that right now some students are
separated by tiny fractions of a point but I don't know the exact
"formula" whereby these rankings are determined. The grading system
is also being changed, to a traditional A through F letter grade PLUS
another letter indicating some sort of degree of proficiency. To
me this all sounds like it's watering down the grading system to the
point where colleges may have a tough time figuring how what the
heck I actually learned and how well I learned it. Am I nuts?</p>
<p>eiffel13, my school (and other schools in the district) really DO NOT rank as per district policy. They send colleges a letter with our transcript stating that they do not ran, but instead place us into deciles where such-to-such a GPA is in the top 10%. The thing is that one extraordinarily high GPA makes other people look bad because the range is increased to include that unusually high GPA.</p>
<p>Students at my school have gone on to amazing colleges: Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, etc. Personally, I wish that they would rank, but obviously the decile system the school gives is enough, or otherwise those students wouldn't be at the places they're today. I'd ask to see a copy of the school's profile that they send to colleges; it should describe a lack of a ranking system and possibly what may be used instead. Also, when our counselors write our recommendations, they'll usually put something like "This student was at the top of his/her class....." to reflect some rudimentary ranking.</p>
<p>Thanks to harvard2727, 6570882, kman1456 and chillaxin for your excellent
posts. I hope the school board gives itself more time to sort out the pros
and cons of all their proposals. I don't see how a no ranking system will
actually work in practice when there are only 4 AP courses offered (yes,
only 4) and lots of fluff courses like TV production, cooking, etc.
There are honors courses, however. It seems more logical to me to
offer more AP's and modify the weighting than to completely eliminate
rank right now. But lots of kids disagree with me and want to abolish
the ranking system.</p>
<p>Chillaxin - I meant to ask you roughly how big your HS is and how
many AP courses you guys have? Honors level courses also?
It sounds like a really good school that has not had much a of
an issue with no ranking system.</p>
<p>I think class rank is bad for two main reasons:</p>
<p>1) It's not a good indicator of your academic standing within your school or even compared to other schools. At my school, students are separated by a hundreth of a point, meaning the 20th is almost the same as the 1st and 2nd. Why should that person deserve such a low rank? Also, since some schools are more competitive than others, rank gives students at less competitive schools an unfair advantage. My GPA is 4.07, and at some schools that would make me valedictorian hands down, but at my school I only make the top 20%. Its hard for a college to take all that into account when its so easy to just look at my rank of 70/380 and just move on. </p>
<p>2) It really does foster unhealthy competition. At my school they rank us but don't put it on our transcripts, so we never knew. This year we found out teachers could look it up on the school network, and since then there hasn't been a day that rank isn't mentioned at some point. </p>
<p>People will say that I'm only jealous because my rank is low, but so what if I am? I worked my behind off for four years, and it sucks that a tenth of a point can separate me 20 places in rank from my peers. It's a totally capricious system that should be abandoned or at the very least reformed.</p>
<p>well class rank is just used for comparison based on other people's superiority or stupidity. being in the top 20 in my school is a valedictorian, not much prestige in it tho. colleges here such as UCLA or UC Berkeley just use this method to choose the best to attend their schools. to me it doesnt matter because everyone is smart in their own way, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. intellectuality is just a trechnique for competitiveness by personally, i feel that ranking is just a way to heat up the animosity among people.</p>