<p>I'm under the impression that a college is capable of figuring out your class rank even if your school does not rank the students.</p>
<p>So I'm wondering how exactly they would do that? Also, how does class size factor in? Does not being in the top 1% in a small class (200~) mean colleges will judge you more harshly?</p>
<p>No, they can’t.</p>
<p>So what do colleges do when your school doesn’t rank?</p>
<p>Yes, they can. Colleges use the profile provided with your transcript which shows average and top grades.</p>
<p>How does that work o.o…</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank, either, but using your schools profile (usually available somewhere on your school’s website, mine was in the Naviance downloads if I recall) you can see a breakdown of how many seniors fell in different GPA ranges. For mine, I’m a little over the halfway mark of GPA of the top 18% of my school, which puts me (very roughly) in the top 10%. I imagine colleges will do something like that to get a rough approximation of where you stand in your class, but they can’t assign a true rank as far as I know.</p>