Class Ranking - I don't get it

Parents Forum
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<p>First post here. Just beginning the college search process (eldest is a junior). My question: Do colleges understand / weigh the caliber of the high school that a student attends? I mean, graduating top 20% from a "top" high school is better than top 10% of a middling school, no?</p>

<p>If colleges DO understand this (and they should), then isn't the notion of saying 90% of admitted students are in the top 10% of their class a little misleading?</p>

<p>Or should I move to a lesser school district so my son has a higher class rank :-)</p>

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<p>^^Schools DO understand that not all high schools are created equal. That’s one reason why they end up with favored “feeder” schools that get lots of kids admitted when they won’t give certain other high schools the time of day.</p>

<p>But personally I wouldn’t move to a greater or lesser school district for college admissions purposes unless my local HS was so terrible that it is impossible for a kid to get a good education there. There is a certain amount of useful strategizing involved in admissions. But packing up and moving solely to improve class rank seems over the top to me.</p>

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<p>While they do recognize that some high schools are harder than others, I dont think they scale it, except for maybe the tip top private schools. At least, thats the impression I’ve gotten. After all, they can’t admit everybody and they need their diversity</p>

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<p>Also, many “top” high schools don’t rank. The colleges can then accept students without having their below 10% standing show up in the college’s statistics.</p>

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<p>From answers during info sessions and from personal experience, most colleges calculate rank (some HS do not even report it any more) based on student GPA and class profile and they take into consideration specific HS in case of well known school that sends relatevely high number of graduates to specific college and it is known to this college the level of college preparation of these applicants. Very selective programs definitely will look at number of AP’s but again will consider HS, since some of well known small private HS do not offer very many AP’s. Some of their regualar classes have higher level of preparation than some AP’s and it is very well known fact.</p>

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<p>Many colleges have regional admissions reps who are familiar with the schools and GCs in those regions.</p>

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<p>We went to one college visit far, far from where we lived, and met (with no prior arrangements) the admissions rep, who promptly asked my daughter which of the two high schools (by name!) she attended in our town.</p>

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<p>When they say 90% were in the top 10% they giving you the facts. If your child is not, chances will be poor. As stated above, many of the very strong high schools do not rank.</p>

<p>I would not move as the top kids at average high schools are not getting into the very top colleges unless they do something out of the ordinary. Your kid will be less inspired to do that in an average setting. It’s a Catch 22.</p>

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<p>Class rank matters, but not so much that you should move to a school district with lesser schools so your kid can have a higher rank. It’s great to be valedictorian, but that doesn’t outweight the actual transcript, nor the added benefits of going to a well-regarded high school (and yes, colleges will know which high schools are the most rigorous in a given area, and they will know if hte student is challenging themselves in keeping with the rigor of the high school. Kids who attend schools where no AP’s are offered are not punished for that in most schools’ admissions processes, but kids who attend schools with lots of APs that htey choose not to take will be judged). </p>

<p>The most important thing when it comes to college admissions at elite colleges is to take the most challenging courses available, and do well in them (A’s and B’s or better). More than ECs, More than class rank or recommendations or essays, what your transcript shows in the context of your school and area in general will be the primary factor they’ll use to judge.</p>

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<p>I suspect most colleges rate the quality of the high schools against each other. If you look at Naviance data from multiple HS’s, you will often see, for example, that the HS GPA admission cut off at one HS might be 3.0, but from another HS might be 2.6. The college is equating a 3.0 from HS1 to be a 2.6 GPA at HS2.</p>

<p>One place where this might not be used is state schools. Their mission is to educate students from the home state and they may treat all HSs equally, or even give preference to the home state’s HS’s over OOS HS’s. Some state colleges also ignore weighted GPAs (weighted by honors courses or APs).</p>

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<p>:rolleyes: I think the “moving” was tongue in cheek…
however the pt is well made</p>

<p>top 10% is a kind of …um…subjecttive to that school, that class, rigor of curriculum…
there are kids in our student’s class with higher gpa and low-ish rigor…
As in a reg class vs a B+ in honors etc…there is a big dif in the courseload</p>

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<p>The mediocre/crummy public h.s. where S-1 and D graduated had class-ranked as #9 the one guy who got into Harvard (with 2 800’s) and #11 rank my S who got into Amherst (with 2 800’s). The Val and Sal went to fine Top private universities (BU, Northeastern). Most of the rest of the top 20 ranked went to state colleges and everyone was excited about their outcomes. One chose a college for its religious focus (BYU). Everyone moved forward and found what they sought, I believe. I never heard the term “Naviance Data” under that roof.</p>

<p>That school offered one AP. Just one. And enough Honors classes to keep the better students’ parents from rioting (thereby joining the rest of the student population). OK, I exaggerate but it was a horror-show school on a daily basis, where GC’s spent weekend time bailing kids out of jail, not getting a few goodies into colleges. The Honors classes kept their handful of motivated (but not hyper-competitive) collegebound students sane, and that was good enough. </p>

<p>By school and town tradition, their h.s. did not add any point-weight to students who took Honors classes. And I came to appreciate that, because it rewarded all the hardworking students who chose a different route. The top ten got paraded through the town streets (literally), and students would drop Honors classes for regular, in hopes of becoming one of the town’s Top Ten. All kinds of newspaper and graduation special seating for them…</p>

<p>And guess what, it didn’t matter, evidently, to Harvard or Amherst that they were admitting Rank #9 and #11 respectively. In part their lower ranking came from tighter grading in the honors classes than the regular track. So be it. </p>

<p>Where we attended info sessions at some Top 30 LAC’s and Ivies, they all said the same thing: they look at the school’s "self-description"checklist form, and look for students who “took most rigorous curricullum available.” Some said they re-weight student h.s. rankings with their own formula. They know the difference between a “weighted” and “unweighted” h.s. GPA. The h.s. attaches a self-description that includes such factors as #'s of students on reduced/free lunch program (poverty indicator); % graduating h.s., and other revealing statistics. When a student does VERY WELL (on transcripts, SAT’s, EC’s) and makes a genuine application with good recommendations from teachers/employers from such a school and community, that student will get a hearing from an AdCom at a private college. Personal essays also count. </p>

<p>This h.s. would have been unknown to any toney regional recruiter from either college, I am reasonably sure. So, don’t move.</p>

<p>Teach your child to excel, take things outside of the school offerings, find himself as a scholar on his own terms, and grow in understanding about his home community. Contribute within and outside the school’s offerings. Go into community for some opportunities, too. Some things my kids did when h.s. EC offerings were thin: rehearsed for months and sang an Easter mass by Bach and a complex piece by Mozart in a local adult community classical chorus (we’re not Christian…) because the h.s. chorus wasn’t serious or disciplined; auditioned then performed dramatic roles in community theater; brother-sister piano/vocal duo in a dinner-theater cafe; regional conclaves of religious group retreats, studied seriously overseas…the h.s. didn’t know the half of what they did. </p>

<p>It will work out fine. Don’t move but plug in to all you can, and beyond, this h.s. they now attend.</p>

<p>PS, “High Schools don’t get into colleges. Students do.”</p>

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<p>Love p3t’s post above. Ultimately, class rank is such a complicated and manipulable local stat. So many other factors go into an application and tell so much more about the student as an individual – and those other factors tend to ensure that kids end up in college settings that suit them. Of all the many mistakes I’ve made as a mom, I think that getting worked up over the val/sal race was one of the biggest.</p>

<p>The only negative point I would toss into the mix is that class rank can be a major factor in merit scholarships, both private and institutional.</p>

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<p>My DD is a senior at TJ. She is a national merit finalist (we will find out any day now if she is a NM scholar) with a lousy class rank (TJ doesn’t release rank, but I think the colleges that care about it can figure it out) </p>

<p>Our experience is that most of the schools she was interested in, were fully aware of the TJ situation. Did her choice of high school hurt her? At the “new ivies” to which she mainly applied, and which we are now deciding between, I think we can definitively say no. They know TJ, and they don’t get as many TJ kids as they would like.</p>

<p>At UVA, there is a bitter debate about it (you can find a sample in the UVA board). UVA definitely considers class rank/GPA, and they do not SEEM to adjust for a greater difficulty in getting a given GPA at TJ - OTOH they clearly take LOTS of TJ kids, including at least some well below the top quartile. Arguments are made both ways, and I would not rehash them here - I would simply point out that for a flagship state U to take all the kids from their states leading magnet HS would introduce real issues of diversity. </p>

<p>For the ivies, I don’t know. Its so hard for anyone to stand out, and the application process has such a large seemingly random element, that its simply too far to say.</p>

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<p>Thanks to everyone for their responses. Good info.</p>

<p>And yes, my suggestion of moving was absolutely tongue in cheek.</p>

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<p>It seems to me as if DO adjust for the difficulty of TJ. Approx. 90% of UVA admitted students are in the top 10%, so the fact that they take some TJ kids well below the top quartile demonstrates that. In our Northern VA HS a student below the top 10% does not get into UVA.</p>

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<p>yes, good info indeed. I have a similar issue (but kinda opposite). We live a street away from the district that has better high schools (than ours), and the thought had entered my mind about making all the sacrifices to move into that better disctrict so that our kids can go to better school. One particular H/S in that district is a CA distinguished H/S and the best H/S in our district, did not even meet 2009 AYP in both L/A and Math. So the dilemma is to stay with the ‘not so hot’ H/S and have a higher class ranking (possibly top tenth percent, which will improve the chance of getting into a good college) OR getting into the ‘distinguished’ H/S in the better district and possibly ended up in the 20th+ percentile ranking (and loosing out any chances of getting into a good college…but it is clearly a far better h/s than the one in our district).</p>

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<p>^Moving? Isn’t it more expensive than just plainly get a kid into Private HS? There are scholarships available at Private HS’s, it might not be as expensive as it appears. My D. had substantial Merit Scholarship at her Private HS that paid 30% of her tuition. The fact is that it was still very expensive, but it was all worthwhile, since we are not paying any tuition at college because of her Merit Scholarships, that has a lot to do with her graduating from her wll known (at least in our area) HS.</p>

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<p>At UT Austin, Texas’ flagship, it is class rank and ONLY class rank that matters. Well-regarded private schools who typically do not rank end up sending many of their students to OOS flagships. Feelings are bitter, and many parents do shuffle their kids around so that they can achieve the coveted “top 8%” ranking that qualifies the student for auto-admit to UT.</p>

<p>And no, UT doesn’t care how “distinguished” the high school is.</p>

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<p>It may help to go to your guidance office to look at the School Profile that is sent to each college. That document explains grading scales, GPA/rank methodology, curricular options/restrictions, and other data that helps even an admission officer who has never heard of your school understand the practices in place.</p>

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Here we go again…</p>

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Thank you.</p>