Admissions will appreciate the data point, but I agree with @skieurope that it doesn’t give an edge.
It isn’t that they don’t care because not everyone does it. That’s not the issue at all. The far greater issue is that they care much more about her rigor, often their own recalculated GPA, and other aspects of the application. Especially at a more selective school, admissions isn’t choosing #1 over #3 on that basis alone, as @skieurope said.
If being #1 matters to her, then that’s her goal. But she should not have that goal thinking that it is a significant boost for admissions at most schools.
My two cents is even when a selective private college says they consider rank, they usually really mean they consider the competitiveness of your secondary school along with rigor when evaluating your transcript. They don’t really mean they would, say, reward you for getting a higher school-reported rank by taking easier classes, nor would they necessarily prefer the highest ranked student if another very highly ranked student had other factors going for them, or so on.
I live in a state where our state flagship university is in the top 50 of US News (for what that is worth). They officially say they do not consider class rank in admissions. I have been paying close attention to their admissions for the past 5 years because of my own kids. I have seen no more accurate factor in predicting who will be (and won’t be) admitted than class rank. It isn’t even close.
It is very possible that these top students also have otherwise very strong applications to college…right?
To the subject here…top tier colleges have a LOT of highly ranked HS students who apply. This is not a guarantee of acceptance…or not…at any of these colleges.
However, it is such a massive statistical correlation that I find it difficult to ignore. Regardless of what this university says, in some way, they have to be considering class rank.
Going back to the original post, do i think it can be worth it to ‘game the system’ by taking classes to focus on improving class rank? Yes.
As the opposing PoV, without knowing the target universities in question and without knowing current rank (both of which we don’t know), giving a resounding “yes” is crappy advice, IMO
Even if we know the target universities and current rank, would it really matter, no. Even if we knew those things, do we have any real, tangible idea what happens in those rooms when determinations are made? No matter what they claim, there is a great deal of evidence that universities often do things behind closed doors that are the opposite of their public positions. I have read countless articles & books and seen many interviews with former admissions officers that back this up. Especially when considering highly selective institutions, maximizing everything in one’s own control is really important.
Also, using the word “crappy” is an overt ad hominem attack. Please read the TOS of this site and discipline yourself accordingly.
It could be that for the particular school you mention, rank is the most important, I wouldn’t know .
Conversely: i have data for top-10s as well as our flagship (a t-25) and it clearly indicates rigor is more important than rank. The two schools i know best are fairly small and everyone has access to what courses everyone takes. Rank matters in the sense of generally decile but schools regularly pick mildly lower ranked (from top half of second decile over top few in first decile) students with better rigor over higher ranked with easier classes. And they pick mildly lower ranked students with impressive leadership and great rigor over top of the class, similar rigor, yet essentially no significant ECs or contributions outside of class.
Of course the most successful ones at top-10s tend to be 1-2-3 rank plus maximum rigor plus impactful ECs.
Based on that, I would never tell a kid to focus on rank. If one does all the rest and happens to end up #1, great! It is a big accomplishment.
At our hs the valedictorian always goes to an Ivy League school or mit . . . But so do other top students. As we don’t rank otherwise and Val isn’t determined until the end I doubt that is the determining factor.
There are just so many nuances, not the least if which is rigor, that unless the university is an auto admit, I fail to see how the answer is anything but “it depends.”
I reviewed your objection and found it unwarranted, but feel free to substitute “irresponsible” in your mind
Outside of something very unusual, aren’t rigor & rank closely aligned? Is there a school that recalculates its own GPA that doesn’t give more points for rigorous courses?
It depends on how and if a school weighs their courses. In my D’s HS there was no difference in weighting between honors and AP course but a huge difference in rigor.
Class rank correlates to such things as GPA that tend to be highly correlated to college admission, even where class rank itself is not considered. This is especially the case within a specific high school.
The issue is…schools can calculate and give more points any way they choose. There is no standard for calculating weighted GPA. Actually, calculating unweighted GPA comes in a bunch of different forms.
And yes…there are high schools that don’t compute a weighted GPA which awards extra points for rigorous courses… at all.
At our small high school, there are always a few kids in the top decile (recognized at graduation) who have very high grades but low rigor. We don’t have that many weighted classes and grading/GPA is out of 100, so rigor doesn’t dictate rank.