<p>In discussion with a friend about the relative value of class rank in the college admissions process, she claimed that state universities place a much high premium on class rank than do private universities. By taking a higher percentage of students from public high schools they can boost their % of students in the Top 10% as the statistical difficulty of achieving this rank is typically easier in the public school environment. She claimed that such an approach further allows the colleges to more effectively manage their admissions of IS students (as some states mandate a class rank as a key factor) and also benefits their minority applicants who might be coming from weaker school districts. Does anybody have any thoughts or further information on this theory? </p>
<p>Here is how the USNWR Top 25 in terms of the difference between their number of Top 10% Students and their % of students from public schools</p>
<p>Princeton (94% Top 10% students, 55% from public HS, +39% difference)
Harvard (+30%)
Yale (+40%)
Caltech (+14%)
Stanford (+27%)
MIT (+22%)
U Penn (+42%)
Duke (+22%)
U Chicago (+21%)
Dartmouth (+29%)
Northwestern (+10%)
J Hopkins (+11%)
Rice (+26%)
Emory (+20%)
Vanderbilt (+19%)
Notre Dame (+35%)
UC Berkeley (+14%)
Georgetown (+33%)
U Virginia (+11%)
U Michigan (+10%)</p>
<p>Full data not available for Columbia, Wash U, Cornell, Brown, and Carnegie Mellon. Source is collegeboard.com and collegedata.com.</p>
<p>I looked for data on the other Top 50 USNWR publics, but couldn't find either the Top 10% number or the public school numbers. If anyone has them, would you please supply them for the following schools:
UCLA
U North Carolina
W&M
U Wisconsin
UCSD
Georgia Tech
U Illinois
U Washington
UC Irvine
UC Davis
UC Santa Barbara
U Florida
Penn State
U Texas</p>
<p>hawkette:</p>
<p>not sure I can answer your Q, but you really need to use the college's CDS and assess how many high schools actually provide rank. For example, I remember a recent article in the LA Times which reported that less than half of the California public high schools rank kids. Obviously, the UC top 10% numbers are estimated.</p>
<p>Take Williams for example: they report on their CDS that only 38% of high schools provide a class rank....</p>
<p>bluebayou,
You raise a good point and I wonder if this number is subject to much manipulation by the colleges. </p>
<p>For ranking purposes on USNWR, the Top 10% numbers carry a weight of 6% of the total score so it is not insignificant. This value seems disproportionate to the quality of what is being measured. If the rankings are going to continue to combine private and public universities, I question the value of this weighting (it's too high in my view) due to the somewhat different audiences that each type of school markets to. An offset to this would be the elimination of the Alumni Giving score which favors private universities and is worth 5% of the total USNWR score.</p>
<p>I'm not sure I agree that this is true, or that state universities would do it for the reasons you post. However, I did want to add to something:</p>
<p>
[quote]
and also benefits their minority applicants who might be coming from weaker school districts.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For public universities, I would argue that they're also interested in students coming from small town/rural districts. </p>
<p>A kid may be class president, salutatorian, and Golden Child of the town--but his or her application may stack up fairly weakly compared to a student coming from a wealthy suburban high school with numerous APs. So giving some consideration for class rank is going to help a university pick up the small-town superstars like this, who deserve a spot at their flagship state university (or universities). Rejecting a kid like this is wrong from a couple of different perspectives, and it's also godawful public/state relations. </p>
<p>A university which does a close reading of applications will catch students like this, but any place which is formula-driven is going to want to have something (a flag, extra points for rank, something) to make sure you don't miss it.</p>