When colleges come across applicants from high schools that supposedly do not rank, don’t they look at the estimated rank in the secondary report filled out by GC? So, shouldn’t it not matter (sorry, double neg) whether your school does or doesn’t rank because colleges look at your rank anyway?
<p>A lot of schools will not put an estimated rank. They will put "N/A" (not applicable) or they can put estimated 10% for more than 10% of the people...because it's so rough, colleges cannot take those estimates as seriously as real ranks, so they really don't matter. Instead, schools typically send a school profile and perhaps a breakdown of grades, so that the college has an idea of the grading policies and how the applicant stands within his/her class.</p>
<p>This is true. They do try to estimate your rank if it isn't provided. The GC report may not have it because a high school district that doesn't rank has probably instructed all of its personel not to rank anybody formally or informally. However, they can get a rough estimate by looking at the high school profile that is sent along with your transcript. (You can ask your GC/Registrar to see a copy of the profile and your transcript.)</p>
<p>The idea of not ranking is supposed to be fairer because it doesn't penalize the students taking the more difficult honors and AP courses. In addition, there are probably some issues about URM's and class rank. Also, some of the private schools stopped ranking because of complaints from parents/students about it hurting some students. The people it hurts in the admissions process are the ones at the very top who can no longer claim their #1, #2, or #3 rank.</p>
<p>YES, that's really good to hear because top 15% of my class has GPA of 4.0 or higher! Someone could have a 4.1 GPA and still be ranked 80/600 at my school. It's crappy..</p>
<p>There are schools that have students share ranks, which is also a bit ridiculous because what's the point of having ranks if 30 people are all #1?</p>
<p>Colleges have a very close idea of where you rank from your school profile and history. Rank matters!</p>
<p>I think the rank derived from school profile and grades is a lot more accurate than some of those calculated by high schools.</p>
<p>What?????????????????</p>
<p>It made more sense in context. If a hs has 40 people with 4.0's (uw), then the profile gives you more of a feel for the grading at the hs than just the person's rank (which would be #1 for all 40 people).</p>
<p>Oh, got it. But even schools that rank have profiles, so of course they know, not to mention that almost every public high school has 20 vals!</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity. What if u went to three schools and the first two were in korea and u don't have a profile and u only have the last school's profile. What happens in that case? Of course the county translated all my grades from korea according to their system.</p>
<p>Based on the numbers of Koreans on this site, American colleges must know lots of Korean schools!</p>