<p>I'm currently ranked 1/700 at my high school but I'm going to transfer to another school where I'll probably be about 30/1000. Will this hurt me when it comes to Ivy League admissions?</p>
<p>That will probably hurt a bit, depending on the competitiveness of both schools. I think most schools consider rank more than gpa.</p>
<p>Ironically, it might be a good thing for you to transfer, notwithstanding rank.</p>
<p>What grade are you in?</p>
<p>If you’re a junior or a senior next year, it’ll be hard for any college to assess you directly against either your former school or you current school. That’s because the classes available to you, the way GPA is counted, and a whole bunch of other factors, etc, (your class rank changing from 1 to 30, for example) show that the two schools are different. It’s unfair to asses you by either because you were at both say two or one years.</p>
<p>This causes for colleges to pay additional attention and perhaps give you degrees of leeway in the acceptance process. For example, a girl transferred from a private school to our high school 2 years ago and became a senior. Though she was neither valedictorian nor salutatorian or something of equally high rank, Princeton accepted her over other students who applied from our school who were ranked higher. She was not excellent in anything else that made her stick out from the rest–(though she did write phenomenal college essays) and as such your transfer might be an advantage.</p>
<p>I don’t think rank can count for all that much because some schools (mine included) don’t rank at all.</p>
<p>Rank is the number one factor for admission at highly selective schools. If your school doesn’t rak colleges figure out a rank for you.</p>
<p>There is a huge advantage in being val or sal at top colleges. Colleges often report the number in every class. At Dartmouth last year, a mid tier ivy, 40% were either val or sal of their class.</p>
<p>Oh interesting, how would they calculate rank if your school doesn’t?</p>
<p>The school, through it’s profile and through questions asked in the school report, gives a lot of data. They couple that with historical data on applicants from your school. If they’re still not sure they call the counselor with more questions. For schools they get a lot of applicants from they have existing formulas.</p>