<p>Hi,</p>
<p>My son is a Junior in High school. His current class rank is 5.Yesterday his councelor told him he is not eligible to take pass or fail with his tennis class.Which means his class rank will mostly goes down to 12(aproximately).He is pretty upset about it.</p>
<p>How important is a class rank in applying colleges?</p>
<p>Out of how many students in the class? #12 out of 12 is different from #12 out of 600.</p>
<p>Different colleges place different levels of importance on class rank in admissions.</p>
<p>920 kids in his class</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it. At some colleges, it matters if you’re in the top 10% or 25%, others don’t even consider it. None will really care if you’re ranked 5 or 12 (as long as you’re in the top % of your class). The GPA’s are likely so close it doesn’t matter. </p>
<p>Don’t sweat it. And will be there be changes in the coming year? He may still go up (or down). </p>
<p>Ranks can all change by the end of junior year. But no matter. A ranking of 12 out of 920 students puts your son in the top 1.5% of his class, which on that one stat, puts him very solidly in range for any college in the land (obviously other factors will count besides class rank).</p>
<p>My D finished her HS career with class rank of 4/ 400. I don’t think it mattered much if anything, I am not even sure if 1st or 2nd even matter. She knew most students from 1-10 and it did not seem to matter as far as where they went to colleges, scholarships… class rank and GPA mean something but there are many other factors.</p>
<p>My 8 out of 600 got into Harvard. My 34 out of 640 or so got into U of Chicago, Tufts and Vassar. Scores, the overall GPA and rigor of the schedule, and teacher recommendation are all much more important than the exact rank. And a slightly lower grade in a physical ed course isn’t going to bother any admissions officer.</p>
<p>Are you serious that GYM affects class rank? That is truly ludicrous.</p>
<p>^ It all depends upon the HS. And many colleges will just ignore that grade.</p>
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<p>Is it a surprise, given the postings from students or parents of students who want to add an unweighted elective (art, music, sports, etc.) to their schedule, but fear loss of class rank if they do that instead of an empty period, study hall, or an extra AP course that is really not of much interest or use to the student?</p>
<p>Probably much more of an issue in your son’s mind than in the admissions officer’s mind. I’m sure that whatever his grades are, they’re good enough to get him into the colleges he likes. Now a #5 down to #30 might be a different story.</p>
<p>How unfair it is depends on what happens with other top students. If they all have to take the same amount of gym, and they are all ineligible to take it pass/fail so it affects their GPA and class rank, then I have a hard time getting upset. If some of them are exempt, or are permitted to take it without having it affect their GPA, then that’s worth maybe a little grumpiness.</p>
<p>At my kids’ school, they changed the rules for calculating GPA and class rank fairly radically at the beginning of my son’s senior year. And they did it retroactively, so that all of a sudden a number of classes from 9th - 11th grades that had never counted in the past were being counted. All of the competitive kids were in a lather about it, but in the end it didn’t mean much because it wound up affecting all of them more or less equally. The difference between an A and a B in a gym class meant about .01 of GPA. Which would have been enough to move someone several places, but only if everyone else in the class-rank neighborhood had a grade that differed from yours.</p>
<p>bcoz Tennis is an elective. It has less GPA compared to K level/AP courses. An elective is not required in 11 th grade…so kids taking elective has disadvantage (gpa/class rank wise)when compared with kids not taking elective.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus youre right.It is sad to see how this GPA game is played.</p>
<p>If your S is taking classes he enjoys, doing well, and learning that’s what we strive for as parents.</p>
<p>“Are you serious that GYM affects class rank? That is truly ludicrous.”</p>
<p>It did for me - 3rd in my class in high school due to a B in gym; would have been 1st otherwise.</p>
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<p>Don’t think 5 to 12 matters out of a large number. But I think that 1-2 matters. Only they can claim to be the valedictorian or salutatorian. Some colleges like to brag about how many of those are in attendance, and I think there may be an admissions advantage. And there can be a material advantage. In my state, the flagship state uni reserves a merit scholarship and research stipend for the valedictorian and salutatorian in each public high school. </p>
<p>It’s an unfortunate, but common situation. In the grand scheme of things it will likely make little difference. </p>
<p>DS had a GPA/ranking ding due to 10 semesters of music c;asses(unweighted, non-required electives). So be it. Music makes him tick. </p>
<p>He never had a study hall. In freshman year (when study halls were full) he was put in a business class (another unweighted A that also brought down his weighted GPA). With only one or two B’s (weighted), he was just outside the 5% cutoff. He was still accepted at some top schools. (It may have hurt him for my workplace scholarship, but i suspect that was more due to lack of traditional leadership roles.) </p>
<p>BTW - His friend had similar issue, due to music and drama classes. He was a great student who went on to attend an Ivy. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about it at all. Colleges will recalculate his gpa using their own methods. This may include using only “academic” (definition??) classes and unweighted grades. Son’s HS did not weight grades, his only study hall was second semester senior year- didn’t always do the work and did not have straight A’s. Did he come out of his HS knowing/learning a lot more than most kids above him in class rank? Of course. Does it matter once a student is in college? By then HS is ancient history. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Let your son enjoy his HS years regardless of the record.</p>
<p>My kids were penalized by the lack of weight for sports and arts, too, but like the poster said above, sports/arts were what made the world go round for them, so they took those courses anyway, even if it hurt their rankings.</p>