<p>Well, I know not every high school ranks their students. However, my school does and it ranks based on a GPA scale. A couple of my friends had a dispute with each other one saying that it is just, fair while the other one claiming it's rigged. So here's the statisitcs:</p>
<p>My 1st friend is ranked #1 in his class. (1/600). He's taken 14 AP classes, all honor classes if possible, and the minimum number of electives required to graduate. </p>
<p>My 2nd friend is ranked #7 in his class. (7/600) He's taken 9 AP classes, some honors classes, and more than enough electives requird to graduate.</p>
<p>So here's the argument: My 2nd friend complains that if he didn't have to take orchestra, he would be number one and that it's unfair my 1st friend is ranked #1 in his class. His argument is also that he got more A's and A+'s than my other friend, who got quite a lot of A-'s and A's. </p>
<p>So what do you think?? I hate to side with someone, but I personally think my 2nd friend is jealous and being a sore loser about it.</p>
<p>Man, I wish my school ranked. I would legit study 5 hours every night just because of the competition. ATM there is no point in getting anything more than a 95%.</p>
<p>They both had the possibility to take the same amount of AP classes, so #1 wins.</p>
<p>Rank isn’t all that matters. BUT I do think your friend #2 is just being sore. He knew how the system works, but he chose orchestra. That’s his decision, and he knew the consequences of it.</p>
<p>Do a-'s and A+'s weigh the same? Our school is a 4.0 system</p>
<p>Becoming val is, to a large extent, about playing the game. You can’t take arts, musics, unless you know all the other vals will too. I have more respect for the people who opt out of the game and take the classes they care about, even if it means they end up being sal. I mean really, Top 10 is all the same.</p>
<p>What’s annoying is that most of the top 10% is made up of kids who take 2 gyms a day and all regular classes. And then all the AP kids are like 50th-90th percentile because the true slackers have them beat.</p>
<p>This is similar to how it works at our school. Taking honors classes ends up HURTING our GPAs, because we have tons of APs and IBs.</p>
<p>Therefore, the kids who follow their passions and whatnot with PE or with music end up losing out. It’s really quite easy to game the system on the other hand. There are at least 10 easy 100 AP/IB classes, and the kids who really care about their rank take all of them, yielding an easy top 5. So rank is pretty illegit at my school, but whatever. I don’t care that much. Doesn’t affect me, xD.</p>
<p>YES…
It’s so stupid, the way they do it at my school. So basically, if you take a non-academic elective (like Band or ASB) it doesn’t factor into your GPA. So thereoretically, someone could take 3 APs, Band, ASB, and Dance, and have a 5.0 Weighted GPA for that year
But classes such as a language only count for 4 pts, (Honors and AP are 5), and academic electives, like Newspaper.
So someone who takes 5 AP classes and a 3rd year of language would only have a 4.833 GPA, lower than someone who took only 3 APs and a bunch of easy classes. </p>
<p>I knew about this before choosing my classes for high school, but I rather be taking the classes I am next year (Newspaper, etc) than be valedictorian. Still, it kind of makes me mad. They should really rethink how they rank students, because it makes absolutely no sense.</p>
<p>I kinda understand how #2 feels, especially if he knows he’s smarter than #1. But he needs to realize that by choosing those electives, he forfeited his right to be valedictorian. He should be happy he made the right choice by pursuing his passion instead of pursuing bragging rights. But he definitely crossed a line if he said “I deserve it more” or something similar to #1</p>
<p>I have a situation kind of similar to this. I am ranked #2 in my class and one of my really good friends is #1. She didn’t take PE and doesn’t plan to until 2nd semester senior year, so it won’t get factored into her GPA during the college admissions process. If she had taken PE with everyone else freshman year, we would be tied for #1.</p>
<p>I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t be #1 and I really don’t think there is a huge difference between 1 and 2. But I do understand why in your situation, your 2nd friend is upset. He shouldn’t be penalized just for taking elective classes and even though he did choose to take these classes, your 1st friend manipulated the system which gives him an unfair advantage.</p>
<p>I have a 3.57 GPA. I have taken over 8 AP classes and 11 AP test. Not to mention countless honors. My grade average is B+ to A-.</p>
<p>I’m currently ranked 260 out of 500.</p>
<p>What the ****? I say at most there are 40 people who are better than me because they can maintain A’s in AP classes but everybody else? We all know the majority of high school students aren’t the brightest bunch.</p>
<p>I think rank tends to be a bit random. It also can hurt students with other interests (though a class like Leadership isn’t a good excuse). One thing that’s a pain is when you’re hurt by taking extra classes. My school’s schedule has 4 quarters of 4 classes. In the second quarter I had straight A’s in 7 classes. If I had taken 4, my GPA would have been 5.0, but those extra 3 classes (one of which was an AP) actually ended up hurting my GPA. </p>
<p>Rank can also be affected by quirks in teacher grading. I got an A three times in pass/fail classes. That hurt my GPA.</p>
<p>By the way friend #1 had a more rigorous schedule than #2 all throughout high school. Also, it’s just orchestra that’s unweighted. #1 took electives that were AP. A-, A, and A+ all weigh the same.</p>
<p>Class rank is to show who took the most ACADEMICALLY challenging schedule. If you take orchestra, you’re knocking out a potential AP class… so you don’t have the MOST challenging schedule. It’s manipulation, sure, but by hard workering kids who don’t care about electives.</p>
<p>Yeah, at my school it’s about the # of weighted classes you take and acing them, so taking electives in your interest like art, orchestra, band, would actually hurt you.</p>
<p>The ranking system in Marcellus was flawed because it wasnt rated people who ownly took tech were in the top ten and those doing AP were almost at the bottom so our was flawed but if it were weighted then it would no longer be flawed</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s frustrating, I suppose. But it’s the same for everyone so you just have to decide what’s important to you and choose your classes accordingly. My school doesn’t rank, other than val and sal (which are only announced at the very end of senior year), so I don’t exactly know how it works. How do you know your rank? Do they just tell you periodically?</p>