@menloparkmom I have looked over that link and he has applied and been accepted to 2 of those schools. Thanks so much for suggesting. them.
@droppedit At D18’s school, it’s a DE race. AP/IB/DE classes are weighted as 6.0 vs. 5.0 for honors and 4.0 for regular. Students can go to the DE across the street full time (4 classes per semester) and finish with an AA. As a result, every one of the top 10 kids are full-time DE students. Overall, I think the program is a really good deal, but I think it undermines the concept of class ranking when your top students haven’t set foot in a classroom at the HS since their sophomore year.
The extreme weights mean that students getting a B in a DE class are weighted the same as students acing an equivalent honors course. It also results in a lot of students being pushed into AP and DE courses that aren’t ready to handle it.
@shortnuke Wow. Our son had an option to do a double enrollment beginning in 11th grade. He opted to stay at his hs because he loved the setting and class options available there. Also, the college selections would not take the place of his core requirements at hs and the schedule going between 2 schools would have been tough since he could have only taken 2 college classes while still having to take 2 hs classes. Some of his peers chose to do the dual enrollment though so that may well have changed the weighting. I never looked into that since he wasn’t interested in pursuing. Regardless, I think that he made the right decision for him. I guess that’s why I feel so incredulous that as well as he’s done he only ranks in the top 3rd. Again, it’s nice to have a group here that understands the ins/outs of all this.
Our school is just the opposite of shortnuke’s. AP (and pre-AP) classes get a 10 point weighting to final grades for GPA calculations only. DE classes do not get any bonus. So all top students do the AP track and the next tier tend to mix AP and DE or focus on DE. This is a competitive large HS in Texas where class ranking often is the determining factor on college admission. Typical weighted GPA for top 10 students (top 1-1.5%) runs in the 103-106 range. Some students take summer school classes in non weighted requirements to exclude them from GPA as the non weighted required classes impact how high you can raise your overall score
My daughters school had 32 Valedictorians last year. Crazy.
@droppedit “The class ranking game has resulted in an AP “arms race” at D18’s school (large public HS).”
Every year at least one student at D20’s large public HS has a mental breakdown at school. The AP race is OOC. Thanks to one “B” D20 is now out of it, and I’m actually somewhat glad the pressure is off.
I promise some kids have. My daughters school it all boils down to freshmen year. Some kids had 1 extra honors choice and others opt for a summer class for DC it truly is a COMPLETE GAME!
She is like your son gpa wise (3.78UW 31 ACT sophomore), but is ranked barely top 20%. Some kids have 3.98 gpas.
She is smart and we dont care about top 30 schools, Im not forcing her to jump through a million hoops to be competitive with this fanatical people. Taking summer classes to bump gpas is more than I think a student should have to do.
Your son will be fine as well.
Just because your daughter doesn’t have a perfect GPA doesn’t mean top 30 schools are out (if you care). My daughter (rank barely top 10%) went to Yale. She had very good test scores and likely very good recs from her teachers. And she took a very rigorous schedule without playing any kind of GPA game. If kids are gaming the system, the colleges know it. And I don’t think they particularly like it.
I agree with the first half of this, but completely disagree with the second.
I don’t think it hurts at all to play the GPA game for class rank - my pups were val and sal, with perfect SAT scores and 4.0 UW GPA - and ended up at Columbia and Stanford.
They played the game out of financial necessity - they understood a full ride to Flagship State was on the table. There’s nothing wrong with top kids challenging themselves, and having a bit of a competitive streak, while performing exceptionally well. Having a competitive side does not mean a kid doesn’t have to be nice.
^^nearly half the students who go to Stanford and Columbia come from schools that dont rank or have
Sals and Vals . So as proud as you are of your pups, I doubt that their class ranking, by itself, meant much to the admissions committees.
Both schools want smart students who excel when taking a rigorous class load.
My D’s high school does not rank, there are no Vals and Sals. There are class speakers and virtually anyone can toss their name in the hat to speak because the class votes on it. It did not hurt her as she was accepted everywhere she applied. They send kids to the ivies, standord and other top 20 schools every year
I think the AP arms race isn’t just about student rank. Even for schools that don’t rank, the common app counselor form asks the counselor to rate the student’s schedule as most demanding or not. Many selective colleges specifically say they’re looking for most demanding. There are levels down from there and I wonder what the effect is of getting the next box down checked instead of “most” despite the fact that the adcom can read the transcript for himself/herself. We have yet to meet with the college counselor and that is my top question, how that designation is determined.
If your child attends a top school, surrounded by other top students, and ends up in the top 40% instead of the top 10%, you have to ask yourself a simple question: Would you give up the education they are getting, in order to be ranked #1 in their class? The same applies if your school doesn’t use a weighted average when ranking. Except for a few rare situations where a particular scholarship is only available to those with a specific rank, you’re better off with the harder courses, and colleges will recognize that when reviewing the application. Tell your kids to challenge themselves, and learn everything they can - the rest will take care of itself
My point about “gaming” is that what matters most is the rigor, not the rank. As I mentioned up-thread, our school has very modest weighting, so the val took a much less rigorous schedule than my kid. He got shut out of pretty much all of his desired (very elite) schools despite being val. Kids quite a bit lower down in the ranking who did take a more rigorous schedule, did “great” and got into pretty much all their desired schools. Anecdotal of course, but I think the ranking isn’t “all that.” The rigor, and performance at that level, is. Aiming for val, while ignoring rigor, can really backfire.
How important ranking is to acceptances depends very much on how schools do ranking. Just as an example a school that doesn’t have any kids of weighting for more rigorous courses will have a less useful ranking except for colleges that accept strictly on ranking without making any judgment calls.
When I think of gaming the system, I think of kids who take courses in the summer, or at community colleges, or who take study halls instead of courses that are unweighted (in our system all the art courses). Luckily in our school there is a special diploma for art courses, and they are very popular even with the kids taking lots of APs. I haven’t seen anyone try to up their rank by not taking extra art courses.
My sister in law is still peeved that the valedictorian in her class as the same grades and took the same classes she did, but she also took orchestra on top of the full schedule - and was therefore downgraded. (She was salutatorian and got into Harvard so it obviously didn’t hurt her, I believe the val did very well too.)
Maybe anecdotal, but probably not. The Valedictorian didn’t do anything to show he is capable of completing college level work. The other students were lower ranked, but presumably took some college level courses, and even though they had less than perfect grades, showed that they were capable of learning at that level. These students might not be the top of their class at an elite college, but they will make it through to graduation - it’s just as well they’re not used to being top dog. 4 or 5 years from now, nobody is going to care who was valedictorian.
Far more than half of students who attend HYPSM type schools do not submit rank. Some specific numbers are below:
Brown – 25% submitted class rank
Cornell – 26% submitted class rank
Yale – 26% submitted class rank
Caltech – 29% submitted class rank
Princeton – 29% submitted class rank
Stanford – 33% submitted class rank
Harvard – Says they do not consider class rank
@hannuhylu thank you.
Class rank is baloney. There are at least three students in the top 10 to 15 at my son’s high school that have lower standardized test scores than my son and/or did not get into or waitlisted at top 20 schools where my son was admitted or waitlisted. He is in the top 10% and has done significantly better in the college admissions than many who were higher ranked. He doesn’t really need advice about success from “higher ranked” peers at graduation! I recently read that some schools have over 20 Valedictorians because they all are named such for having a 4.0 GPA. As others noted, many game the system by taking non AP classes to boost their GPA and class rank. Ridiculous.
Our daughter’s school doesn’t report rank to colleges, even though they do rank internally, and for graduation. Admissions re-calculate GPA anyway. Don’t stress. Rigor and finding the right classes for an individual student is more important than rank!
Multiple valedictorians??? That’s crazy! Now, our school does an academic hall of honor for students who maintained over a 4.0 AND scored 98th percentile on standardize tests, they are recognized at awards night and graduation, but IMO, the valedictorian should go to one person.