<p>38% for vals is pretty ridiculous. I know it was three years ago but…WOW!</p>
<p>In a sense, that’s kind of scary too. 62% of Valedictorians - the supposed best and brightest of a school - are rejected. I just hope I’m not one of those!</p>
<p>Just because someone is a valedictorian does not mean that he or she is top-university material. Many of these rejected valedictorians may have taken easy course loads while those with rigorous ones got a few lower grades. They may not have high test scores or any impressive extracurriculars. Still, there are many very qualified students, valedictorians and others, who are rejected simply because Penn cannot accept every amazing student who applies.</p>
<p>Most schools have to do ranks by weighted GPA, though. So don’t valedictorians take the most rigorous courseload, and do the best? I understand exceptions like avenlea’s, but in general isn’t that the case?</p>
<p>In regards to SAT testing, I still feel that a 2100 can be grounds for rejection. And since avenlea is still a student (at least according to my interpretations), that they cannot offer any “guarantees” about a 2100 vs a 2300. There will be plenty of 2300 rejections and plenty of 2100 rejections…</p>
<p>Also, according to the data set, rank is extremely important. Something to keep in mind…</p>
<p>honors + AP are weighted the same at my school.
also, rocketrick, to quote paragon’s post…</p>
<p>“VERY IMPORTANT - essay, rec letter
IMPORTANT - EC, Awards
CONSIDERATE - SAT, rank”</p>
<p>rank is actually the least important. i am a student, but if you go through the ED thread last year, you’ll see that just as many 2100s (and LOWER, mostly lower!) were accepted as 2300s, and in fact, there were probably less scores closer to 2400.</p>
<p>rocketrick, if you look through old posts on the Penn forum, you will find that the average SAT score of accepted students is less than that of rejected students.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1044615-summary-wharton-sat-stats-ccs-2014-applicants.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1044615-summary-wharton-sat-stats-ccs-2014-applicants.html</a></p>
<p>Also, the entire state of Washington does not weight when calculating class rank, so I don’t know what you are talking about when you say that most schools weight GPA for rank. At my school, I have taken the most AP’s out of almost anyone and am top 25%. Our 20+ valedictorians (4.0 UW) have taken < 3 AP classes (I have taken 8). Rank is NOT a good representation of an applicant’s ability to succeed academically. You will find that many schools do not weight rank and that many do not even rank their students.</p>
<p>“Also, the entire state of Washington does not weight when calculating class rank, so I don’t know what you are talking about when you say that most schools weight GPA for rank. At my school, I have taken the most AP’s out of almost anyone and am top 25%. Our 20+ valedictorians (4.0 UW) have taken < 3 AP classes (I have taken 8). Rank is NOT a good representation of an applicant’s ability to succeed academically. You will find that many schools do not weight rank and that many do not even rank their students.”</p>
<p>this is the STORY of my life. i agree with you entirely. thank you for posting that. for me honors is weighted 1.1, ap is weighted 1.15, so it screws me over more cause our weightage is essentially the same for honors + AP</p>
<p>@ICanDivideByZero</p>
<p>Where did you get that statistic? What high school do you go to? I know for a fact that MY high school, a public school, in the State of Washington, DOES weight when calculating class rank.</p>
<p>Rank is a good representation when weighted GPA is used.</p>
<p>i prefer to believe that penn’s out there to fill a smart, diverse class and under this pretext they are going to have to fill up certain ‘roles’ (talented Asian math whiz, Icelandic lesbian poet, first generation African migrant who did IB/AP, track prodigy, etc.) </p>
<p>So as long as you have done well under a rigorous academic programme and scored within the acceptable range for your SATs/ACT, then they are going to want to see what you have to offer as a PERSON.</p>
<p>The Principal at my high school said that the state of Washington does not allow weighted GPA’s, period. Either he is mistaken, or your high school is an exception of some sort.</p>
<p>Then again, the confusion just might be between official and unofficial. They calculate weighted GPA’s for class rank, but never truly ever release it to the students? If that’s what you mean anyway. </p>
<p>Sorry, I just reread what I typed and I came off as a total jerk. My bad. Stressed with ASB business. Best of luck to you 
Hopefully we represent WA well !</p>
<p>i think it is predictable in a sense that if you have/are no EC, terrible recs, horrible essays, 600 SAT I score, ORM, no legacy, no athlete, no recognition in the community and 1.0 GPA, you are most certainly rejected</p>
<p>@hugedilemma, i totally agree with you.</p>
<p>disagreement, Does yours release it to the public? My school won’t even calculate it…I would be frickin’ top 10% too -__-</p>
<p>Oh well! And hugedilemma I agree with you as well. College admissions is definitely a holistic process.</p>
<p>Are you on a 4.0 scale? How my school does it is AP, Honors, and IB courses are all 5.0 weighted courses. So, if you get an A, you have a 5.0. I have something ridiculous like a 4.78 (impossible to get a pure 5.0 b/c of required 4.0 weighted classes like health) and I’m still only 8th -.-</p>
<p>And they don’t release it to the public. They release ranking though. I know they don’t do ranking based on a 4.0 scale because there are tons of 4.0’s that are below me (i got one b my freshmen year)</p>
<p>Mine is on 4.0 and nothing more. My UW is my W GPA haha.</p>
<p>That’s interesting that your school does that…what school do you go to? You can PM me if you don’t want to say it here.</p>
<p>^ i sympathize with avenlea about the similar honors and AP weighting, it has diminished my rank too. HOWEVER, the biggest problem at my school is a class called chambers singers. It’s an audition singing group that counts as honors weight (.05) and all those who take it get A+s. They justify the honors weight w the fact that they go to performances three times a year and that they audition. At our school, though, the marching band is EXTREMELY intense and we practice/perform every Saturday from 9 in the morning to 1 in the morning and we have practice for hours and hours on almost every weekday AND you have to audition. No honors weight… and with the extra weight, almost every single person in our top 10 overall is in the chambers class, including our val and sal.</p>
<p>Washington State is not representative of the nation.
If you look at the data set, rank is EXTREMELY important. I understand that Penn publishes categories of what they think is important, but that could be skewed. Schools want to receive “junk” applicants so that they can grab those app fees. Which is sad, but true.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank at all, which is fortunate, because everyone below the top 30 valedictorians would be screwed…But it would be nice to say that I’m in an upper percentage, because only 17% of last year’s admitted class had no ranking… :</p>
<p>If you look at the data set, rank is “Considered”. Hence, it is not as important as you make it out to be. If you are referring to the fact that ninety-something percent of all admitted freshman are in the top 10%, your argument is fallacious. High-performing students are typically in the top 10% of their class, but that does not mean that rank is important. There may be a high correlation between high rank and acceptances, but their is no evidence to conclude that being in the top 10% can (assuming all other factors are up to par) result in acceptance (causation).</p>
<p>You’re probably fine. Just because 17% did not have a rank doesn’t mean that they had a lower chance than those who did have a rank. Don’t sweat it. Once again: correlation, not causation.</p>
<p>Actually, that seems really weird. If you look at Brown, which provides more detail than most, well over half of applicants, accepted students, and enrolled students went to schools that do not rank. They are accepted at a somewhat lower rate than ranked students overall, but at a little bit higher rate than ranked students other than valedictorians and salutatorians. </p>
<p>I would not necessarily be surprised if Brown attracted a higher percentage of applicants and enrollees than Penn from schools that don’t rank (read: richer, preppier schools), but the extent of the difference seems shocking, if that 17% figure is accurate. (EDIT: I don’t trust Penn’s figures at all. Its common data set for last year says that 100% of entering students submitted class rank, and you know that could not possibly have been true. I personally know multiple kids attending Penn who went to schools where everyone would jump off a bridge before providing a class rank. At Cornell, only 35% of entering students had a class rank.)</p>
<p>Remember that even if a school doesn’t rank, between the high school profile, the counselor recommendation, and other applications from the same school, Penn admissions people can probably figure out approximate rank at least by decile – and I’m sure they do.</p>
<p>@rocketrick: rank is not NEARLY as important as you’re making it out to me. adcoms realize that it’s different at all schools…it’s not really something you can cross compare by. number one in a class of 20 makes you a valedictorian, sure…but it’s a class of 20. theres a lot of different things to take into account.</p>