HELP! Is being in the top 10 (1-2%) of hs class really important?

<p>Here's a link to the Duke website listing this statistic:
<a href="http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/03/admissions.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/03/admissions.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Here's the quote: "Almost one in six applicants with a class rank was ranked first in his or her class. Duke admitted only 43 percent of the 1,381 valedictorians who applied for admission."</p>

<p>Reading that article, I noticed that I flipped the 60/40 numbers on the SAT statistic in my earlier post. Duke admitted around 60% of those with SAT's of 1550 or higher (not 40%)</p>