<p>There seem to be a lot of candidates on this board from relatively small high school classes. Are you folks mostly from smaller schools back east or maybe private high schools? Just curious. Being from Ca., it just seems so surprising to hear about senior classes with less than a hundred students. I wonder how the academy admissions folks level the playing field when evaluating class standing when comparing someone who is 2 out of 63 vs 20 out of 700. At such a wide disparity even trying to evaluate someones class rank based on top % instead of a hard number must get muddled!</p>
<p>Shogun~We're from a small suburb (considered rural still) in NY but within close proximity of a relatively big city (10 miles). Our HS has about 330-350 students graduating this year. Our rankings change frequently and our son has ranked between 4-6 on a weighted scale. I am not sure how this relates to your question or how the Academy would see his ranking. Our school ranks with a weighted system because like our son, many take honors and AP's throughout school and it would be harder for them to have a higher GPA than those skating by with fewer classes and easier ones. Juniormom</p>
<p>Shogun:</p>
<p>Here's one for you. I looked at the West Point Cadet profiles and one cadet was shown as being class valedictorian - and home schooled. </p>
<p>Agree that class rankings are tough to compare when school size and student demographics vary. We live in the South and our son attends a private school with about 80 students per grade. About 25% of the local students attend private schools. Like many private schools in our area, admittance to the school is competitive and the resulting student demographics are very different from the public schools. 100 percent of the students at his school go on to college whereas our local public schools have a 40% high school dropout rate. At one local private school, 21 of 125 seniors were national merit scholar finalists! Yes, finalists. Another 25 of that same senior class were commended scholars. At that school you could be a national merit scholar and not be in the top 40% of you class. For that reason, most of the private schools do not release class rankings except for class valedictorian(s).</p>
<p>Talked with one person who use to sit on a congressional nomination review board and he said that less weight is being put on grades and rankings, and more weight on the SAT/ACT results since the grades and rankings have so many variables. Despite their limitations, the standardized tests are pretty much uniform. Obviously good SAT scores with low grades is still a red flag.</p>
<p>East coast here, medium suburb. Public school has 400 per class; private schools range from 40 to 175 per class. All private schools are highly competitive. Same example as aspen's - my D's HS, 40% are national merit. Selection index - 222. D's school also does not rank.</p>
<p>I can see where the small private school would be academically competitive if entrance is also competitive and would thus result in a higher percentage of kids going off to college and testing well. On the other side I would imagine it limits competition to be on a varsity sport or to participate in extra-curriculars (Obviously an advantage to a candidate) . In other words, not near as hard to play a varsity sport if the entire school only has 4 or 5 hundred kids. I'm only asking because the number of private small high schools in ca seems to be a lot less than back east --- and a concept not real familiar out here! You should see the competition to play a varsity sport in a school with 3000 kids! Whew! Good luck to all!</p>
<p>Shogun:</p>
<p>You're right that small school size makes it easier to be on varsity teams for most sports. What's interesting is, that in our state, many of the sports are still dominated by the smaller private schools. While football, basketball and soccer are popular at most public schools, many 2000+ public schools have problems filling out the rosters for cross country, swimming, wrestling and several other sports.</p>
<p>Large public school in Alabama (though the best public school in 'Bama). I'm 21/500</p>
<p>Shogun-</p>
<p>No question, the smaller private schools in this part of the world have weaker football, basketball, soccer, and baseball teams. Very seldom is a student recruited for college for one of those sports, and while the schedule includes a couple of large high schools each year, those games are always very tough.</p>
<p>On the flip side, the smaller sports - water polo, squash, tennis, crew, swimming, fencing, field hockey, lacrosse thrive. State and national level performances are routine. It's very common for kids to be college-recruited in these areas.</p>
<p>I'd have to agree that it's a huge advantage in terms of EC's at a smaller school. Every school has an editor of the newspaper, president of the student body, valedictorian, captain of the football team, etc. There are more of these to go around at the smaller school. I hope that there's some way of factoring this into the process.</p>
<p>My daughter attends an Illinois high school with 4000+ students - about 1100 seniors. It's highly competitive with a weighted gpa of 4.0 putting a student in the top 20%. I also recall a statistic that listed it as #3 worldwide in number of students passing AP exams. It is difficult to obtain a leadership position, but the school makes up for it by providing so many different opportunities. For example, we have 3 field hockey teams, varsity and 2 levels of junior varsity. We also have numerous publications including </p>
<p>Also, when a high school sends an official transcript to any college, a description of the student body and course options is included. That should help the college determine how competitive the high school actually is.</p>
<p>My Senior class has over 500 students. The entire school has around 3800 kids.</p>
<p>My class rank of 105/535 is rather misleading. I attend a Magnet program within my school. Many students in my class take easy classes, get A's, and, in their Senior year, are taking few classes. I have mostly Honors and AP classes, and I take a full load, plus an extra online class. </p>
<p>My school is considered highly competitive, not including the Magnet program. My gpa is 3.8, and I expect that to rise with semester grades. We send over 74% of our graduates on to college. </p>
<p>As for Varsity sports, our Men's Tennis team has taken the State Championships for three of my four years at my high school. We only made the finals this year--but my doubles partner and I went to State. I'm Captain of the Varsity Tennis team. </p>
<p>Doug</p>
<p>i go to a private Catholic school in Washington D.C. and we only have 180 seniors. im ranked 18/180</p>
<p>I go to a small public school...yes, in California. We have 53 students in my senior class.</p>
<p>I go to a very small school in Cal with a senior class of about 95 and a high school size of 390. Believe it or not I was ranked 51 in my class with a 3.8W... but I got a LOA. No doubt my outside expierence and sports participation helped out but it just shows that there still is hope for people with low class ranking. Of course it is much easier to play varsity sports because of the size of the school and the lack of competition for spots on sports teams. That's just the way it is I guess. Here are the stats from '08 btw.</p>
<p>Class Rank
First fifth 81%
Second fifth 13%
Third fifth 4%
Fourth fifth 1.5%
Fifth fifth 0.5%</p>