I am currently a sophomore in high school and ranked 61/510 in my class. How difficult would be to reach the top 10% or maybe even top 5% by the time I graduate?
Rank is based on GPA, so in order to raise your GPA, you have to get good grades in challenging courses (assuming that at your school, AP and honors classes are weighted). You’re pretty close to the top 10%, so I’d say it wouldn’t be too hard to reach that. Top 5% might be a stretch.
Just work hard and try to get the best grades you can.
It depends on the number of APs your school offers. My friends rank changed from 100th to 40 something because she took a large number of AP classes. You are very close to the top 10% so it is very doable, but I would say top 5% is unlikely. I also recommend studying really hard for you SATs in order out to balance out your class rank
As others mentioned, it will depend on how your school ranks AP, Honors, Dual Credit, etc. Look at your current GPA and if you know the weightings, you could calculate what one more A instead of a B, or an Honors class instead of regular would have done to your GPA. You still won’t be able to compare to the other students, but you could see how much your GPA raises.
Since you are only a sophomore, you have more time to increase your ranking. Study hard and do the best in classes you are interested in. What I wouldn’t do imo, is take several AP courses that you aren’t interested in, only to try to increase your rank. It could backfire and possibly hurt you more with a lower GPA.