I’m a sophomore , really interested in the Ivy League (I already have safety colleges etc.). Grade wise I’ve been kind of stressed and concerned if class rank really matters all that much in college admissions. I find the concept really unhealthy and stressful to one’s self trying to get the best grades out of everyone and comparing yourself to others constantly. So is class rank really all that important? Will it even make a difference? I’m making A’s and A-s in honors and AP’s but my grades aren’t extraordinary or earth shattering. I am however making better grades then most of my school and am above average but I’m pretty sure I’m not in the top 10 (atleast the last time I checked) and my school might have dropped the ranking system this year…
It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You just have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing. You also need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
Recognize that by saying you are interested in “Ivy League” you come off as interested in prestige over fit. The Ivy League has all excellent schools but it is a sports league – the 8 colleges should not be lumped together. A person who enjoys the open curriculum of Brown will likely not want the large core at Columbia. A person who loves the outdoors feel of Dartmouth will likely not want to be in an urban campus such as Penn. You already have a number of posts asking about the Ivy League – I’d stop this for now.
When the time (junior year) comes asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. You need to expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
You can only focus on what you can do. You will drive yourself crazy worrying about everyone else and you have no control over their grades, only your own.
Talk to your GC to see if/how your school even reports rank. My daughter’s HS only reported the #1 and 2, and then it was deciles and course load rigor.
Top 10% or top 10 students? Your numerical rank does not matter as much as where your GPA puts you percentile-wise.
When my son was in his sophomore year in high school, he just happened to mention to me his ambition of going for the valedictorian honor. Why not, he was a straight A student all his life and was taking challenging IB courses. But I advised him to forget about it. For one thing, being a val doesn’t really amount to hardly any advantage when it comes to your chances at tippy top colleges. Therefore, two, it didn’t make any sense to put yourself through so much angst and stress for something with dubious return. I did encourage him, however, just to be in the “competitive range” GPA wise and focus more on those EC’s that he really enjoyed participating in. He graduated 6th out of some 300 student body. With the strength of his EC’s, he was admitted to 3 Ivy’s. Those who graduated 1-5 above him? 0 Ivy acceptance. Well, you get the morale of the story…
Oh, I might as well add. The same strategy with ACT and SAT scores, i.e., just be within the “competitive range” without killing yourself trying to attain the perfect or near perfect scores.