<p>My son, though usually laid-back, is concerned about his class rank. He's a senior--ok, a little late to get concerned--and his rank is 15 or 16 out of about 365. His HS doesn't weight GPA, so his AP courses count for no more than regular courses. He got 2 B pluses in freshman year (skipped a year of French and opted for tougher math class), has had a few A minuses, the rest all As and A pluses.</p>
<p>My understanding from hanging around CC for a few months is that the colleges will probably weight his GPA and thus give him "extra credit" for taking more challenging courses. But that won't change his rank because that can only be calculated against his classmates and the colleges won't have that info. So do they mentally boost his rank or not really?</p>
<p>Is top 5% "good enough"? He's applying to small LACs, 6 of them in top 20 USN&WR, 2 in the top 50, 2 more in the lower 50. I know you can't really give chances, but it sounds like rank is really important to colleges. I guess I (or he) could call them and ask, but that would seem sort of desperate.</p>
<p>Well first off he has plenty of safeties imho. Secondly, while the top 5% ranking is very good, I suspect that adcoms will give him a little boost because his hs does not weight gpa's. But really, how many woodshoppers and business math students strive to get a gpa that puts them in the top 5%? Finally, the adcoms will be looking at SAT/ACT scores which help separate the pack of applicants.</p>
<p>LACs usually look very carefully at every component of the package, so I think that he'll be ok too. However, ranking can be an issue when applying to highly selective colleges. If they don't know the highschool very well, there is a tendency to discard anyone who isn't in the top 5, never mind 5%. I read this years a go in the "A is for Admissions" by Michelle Hernandez, and have since gotten it confirmed by many sources. It is not fair, but it is the way it works. Schools that are the top colleges' radar screens do not have to worrry about this, and it seems like those schools don't rank anyways. But it can be an issue. When there is that deluge of apps, things are not examined as closely as they might be, and when the object of the adcom is to get through that pile and reject as many as they can because the seats are scarce, rank and other numerical ratings are an easy way to eliminate.</p>
<p>Agree with Marite and originaloog. Top 5% is fine for selective colleges in many cases so the quality of thought in essays, references and how your S might contribute to his future college community take on more interest. My son was just barely in the top 5% and received more admissions than we expected. He was prepared to attend his safety/match colleges happily and gave them equal attention re visits and essays, but was admitted to two out of his three reach colleges. Reach colleges are simply hard to predict so make sure your son would really like to attend his less selective schools.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that colleges usually ask the school to comment on the toughness of the applicant's program relative to what the school offers. Plus, with the smaller colleges, where they tend to take a more holistic approach to admissions, they will be looking past the statistics at the whole package (and may also know your child's school and have a feel for what his record there means).</p>
<p>Don't worry. I know that is hard. My D has her ED application (and her heart) in at a top LAC. Like your son, she has wonderful credentials. Still, every little slightly weaker part of her application and profile glare in my thoughts because I know what they are. It's easy to let them get out of perspective and to overemphasize them in my thoughts.</p>
<p>I was just looking at some other posters' lists of where they are applying and noticing that many of them, despite all warnings, have only reaches. Sounds as though your son has a more sensible list and hasn't been blinded by his credentials and schools' brand names. He will be fine.</p>
<p>Top 5% rank puts him in upper 50% of those admitted to all those LACs ranked in USNews and in many cases in upper 25%. Thus, rank is not going to be an issue.</p>
<p>BethieVT.....he is going to be fine with regard to this one "stat." First of all, even top 5% puts him in range for the kinds of schools I believe your son is applying to. That rank will not keep him out of those schools by itself. However, I know exactly what you mean by unweighted rank as that is what our VT HS had like yours. In fact, vals and sals could and have been kids who took no Honors or AP classes at all. Yes, indeed, kids with the easy tracks can easily be ranked above those in the harder tracked classes at our HS (and no, it is not just the woodshoppers, etc. as implied in another post but simply kids who took no Honors classes, etc.). Colleges WILL look at how the ranking system works at your school and so they will see it is unweighted and take that into account in interpretting the data. Further, despite what the rank is, colleges look very closely at the strength of the curriculum, so that the fact that your son took the hardest courses available to him, even accelerated in some subjects, etc. WILL count and will matter. So, they don't just look at GPA and rank and leave it at that. Your son's academic record is extremely strong and will be examined in light of the fact that he took the harder tracked classes available. I have a sense of the kinds of schools your son applied to and I believe none are Ivies for example. So the top 5% with the excellent GPA and strength of courses, and I believe he had pretty strong SATs, will all put him in range for the schools he selected to apply to. That doesn't mean he'll get in all the most selective ones on his list but if he doesn't, it won't necessarily mean that his rank, GPA, etc. were not good enough but simply with lower admit rates, even kids with the "right stats" also get rejected at the most selective schools. Your son has a balanced list and he is in range for all the schools. </p>
<p>By the way, my older D (who is now a junior in college) felt strongly about the unweighted GPA ranking system at our HS because indeed, many kids with much easier classes are ranked higher than the truly top students in the school and as I have said, have been val, sal, etc. My D took the hardest classes, accelerated and then some. She happened to end up as val even so, which was harder to accomplish given that her course load was more difficult than others ranked high. For instance, those kids ranked second, third, and fourth in her year were not in the Honors/AP classes. The system doesn't reward or encourage students to take the harder classes. She researched weighted and unweighted ranking systems nationally and within VT. She worked very hard for two years on both the research and developing a rationale for a weighted ranking system and developing a new rank policy for our HS. She shared her research, rationale and new policy with the faculty and administration and the school board eventually. It took two years of effort and time, often with roadblocks in the way. But she did present to the School Board which held a public meeting on her policy proposal and they adopted it. She had nothing to gain as it was not going to affect her or her class but for those who came later. Now, our HS does have weighted grades for the purpose of rank, though unweighted grades are used for Honor Roll, etc.</p>
<p>PS to Bethie...also look at where other students who took the kinds of courses your son took at your school and had a similar rank ended up at college. They did all right with admissions? Do some of them attend schools in the selectivity range of the ones your son is applying to? I imagine so. I believe I know which HS your son goes to and I really do think that students of his caliber end up at pretty selective schools. I have interviewed kids from your HS before. My kids also know kids who attend or have attended your HS. If anything, your HS has a better reputation than our HS....it is bigger and draws from a different community...and even at our smaller rural HS, kids do get into selective colleges, just a smaller number of them.</p>
<p>I would hope -- maybe I'm naive -- that the GC recommendation for a student like this from a high school like this would say something like the following, if true: </p>
<p>"X has consistently chosen the most challenging courseload available to him at this school, and his academic performance puts him among the top [5, 10, whatever] students who have similarly challenged themselves. If we weighted our GPAs in the manner chosen by some schools (1.1 weighting for honors classes, 1.2 for AP or IB classes), he would be ranked in the top 1-2% of his class."</p>
<p>Elite private schools that don't weight GPAs, or give class ranks, or offer AP courses, etc., wouldn't use the second sentence, but I'm pretty sure they say something like the first.</p>
<p>(Waves to Bethie from across the Green Mountains.)</p>
<p>Given some of the other things I know about your son, I think he'll be OK at the majority of colleges. Isn't he applying to schools outside of New England? That will help a lot, and give him a geography hook. Soozie is right, your HS has a great rep. </p>
<p>Your question came up at a Q&A at our HS last month (our HS also doesn't weight grades). The GC said that for kids in that situation, they will often indicate in their write-ups whether they think the rank reflects the students' true standing in the class, and will say for some kids that they consider them in the top 1-3 percent of the class. Hopefully the GC at your school does that too.</p>
<p>Also, colleges may compare kids within a high school (OK, there is some debate over that, but I believe it's true). If there are kids with a higher rank applying to the same schools he is, then perhaps you have a greater reason to be concerned. If it's him versus the valedictorian, I'd be worried.</p>
<p>I have the same concerns with my daughter, who is not ranked at the tippy top. (She's not worried, but I am.) So, I hear you.</p>
<p>Hi sly and soozie! Yes one potential for val (at least) has taken no AP etc. courses. However, most of those courses have intrinsic value because they're more interesting, so I know S would never wish he'd not taken them. Besides, to be considered by most of his schools, he had to take them.</p>
<p>Good point about the GC. He's very smart and highly competent and likes S. I'm sure he'll do well by him and point out the lack of weights.</p>
<p>Yes, no Ivies and most colleges are outside our geographic area. That should help. I know it's dumb to worry, but it's really nice to have you guys to worry with!</p>
<p>PS
It's doubtful that many or any students from S's HS will apply to most on his list. The majority of kids here don't stray far from home and the Midwest might as well be Outer Mongolia. I couldn't find much on Naviance because there isn't much history with these schools.</p>
<p>Bethie, colleges are very familiar with the fact that some high schools have unweighted GPAs and rank. Your son's record on his transcript in terms of courses and grades will speak for itself. He has what it takes to get into those schools, though that doesn't necessarily mean he will get in. The point is also that he has a well balanced list which should yield several positive results. He can only go to one school after all, LOL. Kids from your HS (and even from our smaller less regarded one) get into very selective colleges. Yes, the admissions process involves anxiety and worry because it is in someone else's hands but your son had an appropriate list and I am sure put his all into apps and you seem on top of things, and he'll be fine. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better....my second daughter who truly is about the age of your son but she entered K early and then ALSO graduated HS after junior year (so chronologically should have been in your son's grade normally)....went to a less known public than yours, and had a lower rank than your son, though had to be ranked with the class above hers since she was going to graduate with them (was still unweighted the year she graduated as the weighted rank went into effect this past class but she graduated early and missed the new system). She took the hardest classes available plus accelerated (example: as a junior she was in AP Calculus and French V which is never done by anyone here....except her older sister) and her academic application was surely more scrutinized as an early graduate than your son's will be. The school she is attending has a 28% admit rate. The program within her university that she got into has approx. a 6% admit rate. She not only got in but was selected as one of 15 Scholars at the school within her university AND got a very large four year named scholarship which took merit into account. So, as this example shows, even a rank lower than your son's rank in an unweighted GPA rank Vermont HS, still yielded a positive admissions outcome at a school with a low admit rate, and even garnered Scholar standing and a very large merit scholarship award. So, schools examine the entire record and look at the rank itself in terms of the ranking system (the GC report asks if the rank is weighted or unweighted) and surely examine the strength of the course load and the grades in that context. Your son goes to a "better" regarded HS and has a higher rank (of course admissions involves way more than rank but I am simply comparing ranks as that is what you brought up). Really, this one factor is fine on your son's record.</p>
<p>Look at the schools he applied to and many publish statistics about their admitted freshmen class and the percentage that ranked in the top 10%, top 25%, etc. I imagine at your son's colelges, there are students who get in who are not even in the top 10% (just at a lower rate of acceptance) and your son is actually in the top 5% in an unweighted rank school. Truly, he is in the running for his colleges on that one factor.</p>
<p>Bethie, I did not see your post #14 when I just posted but even if your son's colleges are not on your HS's naviance (we don't even have naviance here!), look at comparably selective schools to your son's list and how kids with similar stats to your son fared at that level of college selectivity even if not the same colleges. I bet you'll find that kids like your son from your HS got into colleges of a similar level of selectivity as your son is aiming toward. The midwest schools will even be a bigger tip because like you say, how many VT kids even apply to those and so he'll get a little geographical boost for being from VT at some LAC in the midwest. Take very little "boost" you can get, LOL. My niece is a college applicant this year and she lives in Alaska!</p>
<p>The opposite of what you think is actually true. The colleges don't weight the grades if one takes honors or AP courses. What they do is look at the unweighted grade. Since different high schools grade differently it is necessary to do this. The reason is because a two students could go to two different schools for example where they both earn a base grade of 91 in an honors class. One school could grade on a 100 point scale and the other school could grade on a 5.0 scale. The school that grades on the 100 point scale would give that student an unweighted grade of 91, and a weighted grade of 96 if it were an honors class for example, or a 101 if it were an AP class. The school that grades on the 5.0 scale might give that student an unweighted A or 4.0 for the base grade, and a weighted 4.5 or 5.0 depending on whether it was honors or AP. Thus, two students could get identical grades for every class they took at two different schools, but one could graduate with an unweighted 94 and a weighted 99 and still have less than a weighted 4.0 while the other studnet could have close to a 5.0. To compensate for the grading differences at each school, the colleges will look at the unweighted grade in each class.
What they want to know is what was the rigor of curriculum the student took? how did they do in those rigorous classes before the weights were added on. If a student earned a 93 in an AP course before the weights were added on, that is more impressive than if a student in another school earned an 85, even if that 85 was weighted and turned into a 4.0
It sounds like your son has a great grade point average. Most important for lop LAC's will be if he is in the top 10% of the class.</p>
<p>collegebound5...all of what you say is true with regard to GPA. Colleges will compute an unweighted GPA as that is comparable since not all schools use a weighted system for GPA and in fact, not all use a 4.0 scale either. I am pointing this fact out to applicants all the time with whom I work. They often provide a weighted GPA and sometimes not even on a 4.0 scale and so I compute an unweighted GPA for them on a 4.0 scale for comparison purposes with published data of average GPAs of admitted students to X College, etc. Even though an unweighted GPA is configured, schools definitely examine the strength and rigor of the courseload and also how difficult a curriculum the student chose in relation as to what was offered at his school. I agree with all that you wrote.</p>
<p>However, this discussion wasn't really about GPA, but was about rank, an unweighted rank. Many schools that use rank, use a weighted one and so when examining a student's rank from a school that only uses unweighted GPAs, it must be taken into account that the student's (who took the most demanding courses) ranking may have been higher if a weighted system were used. Just like examining GPA must be in context as to what courses were taken, rank also must be looked at in context as to whether a weighted or unweighted system of ranking was used. The GC report, I believe, includes a question asking if the rank is weighted or unweighted. As I mentioned earlier, though one of my kids was val as she apparently was the only kid in the class with straight A's and a 4.0, she took the hardest classes available and beyond. But with an unweighted GPA and ranking system, many in the top five rank had not taken the Honors level courses at all. Thus some of the truly top students in our HS do not necessarily make the top 5% in terms of rank. When I examine the stats of my clients, I always look at if the rank is weighted or not and interpret it accordingly.</p>