Is there a space in the UC application to write down your class rank? My school does not report class rankings to colleges or students, but I got an ELC letter a few months ago so I know I’m at least top 15%.
Someone told me that UC’s do not consider it but looking at the common data sets, somehow the colleges were able to find out that most of their students were in the top 10% of their class. So what is the correct information?
UC’s consider rank in the context of ELC eligibility (top 9% of HS or Statewide). When you fill out the UC application, based on your grades and HS courses listed, your ELC eligibility will be noted automatically.
@Gumbymom so there is no individual space on the application telling me to state my class rank?
Class rank from your high school is not considered by UC. However, GPA and ELC status are obviously correlated to class rank.
ELC status is determined by UC reranking a recent previous class at your high school by UC-recalculated GPA, then comparing your UC-recalculated GPA to the top 9% threshold of the reranked recent previous class (see http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/q-and-a/local/index.html#1 ). This should correlate fairly well to class rank, but may not match for some students (e.g. those at the top 9% margin, or those whose 9th grade course grades were much better or worse than their 10th-11th grade course grades).
Since the “rank” for ELC purposes is determined by comparing your UC-recalculated GPA to thresholds set by a recent previous class, there should be no incentive in the context of UC to cutthroat other students in your class to gain rank positions.
There is no place to state your rank on the UC application.
@Gumbymom and @ucbalumnus thank you for your help!