I’ve heard that most top tier colleges re-calculate the GPAs, which is good news for my kid, since his WGPA suffers from some non-honor high school credit classes taken in middle school and some non-AP non-academic classes taken in high school. Do we know if the colleges just use the class ranking submitted by the high schools, or do they also re-rank the kids from the same high school?
There are ways to slightly improve his WGPA but it will require him to not take some class that really interest him.
IMO, I wouldn’t worry a hill of beans about playing the ranking game unless you are in a state that auto admits. Your student should take the courses that he wants.
I would not worry about class rank for one minute. Fact is…many colleges don’t consider it…at all. And also, how high schools determine class rank varies even more than how they calculate GPA.
I think class rank probably matters a lot less than it used to, now that more and more (most?) schools don’t rank. And the reason for this trend is that students play the rankings game. If your student is at or near the top of the class, the counselor will say so, but don’t ask him to sacrifice a class he really wants to take just for a couple of hundredths of a point on the GPA scale.
I wouldn’t worry about class rank at all. Many HS’s (including ours) dropped it long ago. They only show bands of students, not individual rank and that is usually a pretty broad category so not that meaningful. I doubt colleges have the time or inclination to re-rank kids from the same school - getting through the applications is tough enough as it is.
While few high schools continue to release rank and it is impossible for admissions to “re-rank,” I think some of these comments may mislead you.
Admissions WILL consider your student in the context of other applicants and historical applicants from your school. If 20 kids from the same high school apply, where your kid’s rigor and GPA fall within that pool will be meaningful. They may use recalculated GPA, but how that compares to high school classmates’ matters.
Also, while most schools no longer release rank, there can be other indications on a school profile like highest GPA in class, GPAs by decile, previous year GPA distribution, etc.
None of these is the only factor and AOs realize that often band kids, yearbook kids, etc., may end up with fewer weighted classes, but I would never tell someone that class rank is irrelevant.
You might want to check out this very helpful video that Holy Cross Admissions released a couple years ago:
It walks through the initial processing of a hypothetical transcript. I think once you see that process in action, it becomes clear what understanding a transcript in context means, and why you should not be concerned about school-calculated rankings.
Thank you everyone! His school still provides ranking but hopefully he’ll still be in a good “band” by senior year while pursuing his interest. If he is in 1%, it doesn’t matter if he is ranked 9 or 1, right?
Also, the counselor report asks the counselor to give a subjective rank range for the student. See the bottom of page 2 of Salesforce , where the counselor is asked to classify the student in academic achievements, extrcurricular accomplishments, personal qualities and character, and overall with the following subjective rank ranges:
No basis
Below average
Average
Good (above average)
Very good (well above average)
Excellent (top 10%)
Outstanding (top 5%)
One of the top few encountered in my career
The check box for academic achievements can give the admissions reader the approximate class rank of the applicant.
In theory, a high school could choose the bands to make them useful for specific situations. For example, a high school in Texas may choose to set the bands at top 6% (or whatever UT Austin’s auto-admit criterion is), top 10% (other Texas public universities’ auto-admit), top 25%, top 50%, top 75% (the latter three commonly being used in combination with test scores for additional auto-admit ranges at less selective Texas public universities).
I note that we basically know from how deep these colleges go into different high school classes that they cannot possibly have a strict, universal requirement for the top-most of those categories, and in some cases not the second either (although at that point we might need to start pinning down what “top tier college” means).
Yes, in theory. In states, like those you mentioned, where a certain % of students are auto admit to various schools, they obviously are calculating class rank. Our school got rid of it over 10 years ago (way before I had any high school students). I do wish they would make the various groupings a little more granular instead of showing them by bands of gpa (i.e. 4.0 - 4.3) which isn’t that helpful.
I know that the letter of recommendation form asks “Do you complete applicants’ academic ratings on the Common Application Teacher Evaluation?” Apparently if the teacher marks no, then those rankings don’t show up at all in the app and the student can’t be compared to their classmates by the teacher. Is there a similar question on the guidance counselor’s form so that potentially some schools don’t classify students’ rank anywhere at all if it is not automatically on the transcript?
Here’s a related question. Does it give a student an edge if they are ranked #1 in their class? Versus UW GPA and rigor? D25 currently is #1 and it’s v important to her to keep up. I’m hoping that it’s a big boost in terms of how she’s seen? Or do they not really care since not everyone does it?
