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<p>Yes, they are absolutely seeking kids from lesser schools and taking fewer from elite prep schools and top publics. But they expect the kids from the average high schools to be val or sal. This is why mid tier ivies now talk about 40% of a class being number 1 or 2. That was impossible in the days when half the class plus came from elite prep schools.</p>
<p>If your school doesn’t rank, the college will use the school profile data that all schools send with their transcripts and estimate where you fall. </p>
<p>I believe the colleges that are quoting what % of their class is in the top 10% usually qualify that data by saying, “Percentage of students whose high schools report a class rank.” In other words, if a college admitted 1000 freshmen, and 100 of them came came from schools that don’t rank, then they’d only figure out what % of the 900 kids who came from schools that DO rank were in the top 10% of their hs class.</p>
<p>OP if your hs is really THAT competitive (and I know there are some that are), the colleges will know about it.</p>
<p>So…hypothetically, in a class of 35 and 1 has a 4.8 and 35 has a 4.2, 35 could get into HYPS if the school didn’t rank?</p>
<p>No. Most adcom will tell you that not ranking is the more probable disadvantage. Most colleges approximate a rank for candidates who are not officially ranked using the school profile and historical data on applicants from the school. They talk to counselors for needed clarification of where a student stands.</p>
<p>Most private schools don’t rank and lots of competitive publics have moved in that direction too. The colleges are very familiar with what GPAs mean at these schools.</p>
<p>And one more time, the kid from the rich public hs is advantaged over the kid from the average public hs where the counselors are busy getting everyone into State U. It blows my mind that the adcoms don’t see through this and discount it.</p>
<p>@hmom5:That’s what I thought. Which actually, reminds me, and I apologize as this is a bit off-topic. Does the Academic Index, introduced in the now 6 or 7 years old book by M. Hernandez, mean anything at these schools anymore?
@Pizzagirl: I assume this is why programs such as QB are created, even if it only helps a small number of people.</p>
<p>The adcoms are just as likely to see the other side of the coin also. A kid who goes to a very rigorous public high school filled with high achievers could be in the top 15% of her class. This same student could have been in the top 1% of her class had she gone to an “average public hs where the counselors are busy getting everyone into State U.”</p>
<p>But a student may never reach their potential at an average high school, whereas sending said student to any other school would make them motivated, high-scoring and competitive admits.</p>
<p>Most schools use some index, many their own. In the same book Hernandez goes into detail about how they calculate rank for the unranked.</p>
<p>I believe each college looks at ranking differently. D’s high school shows 3 different GPAs on their transcripts but ranks off of the weighted GPA for all 4 years, which I assume is normal. D’s class rank was 28 of 127. At least 3/4 of the students in front of her had less rigorous schedules than our D- but she made those aggressive choices herself and was willing to live with the lower ranking. Didn’t stop her from getting into Stanford, with a less than perfect transcript. She was the first student ever from her school to be admitted on academic merit. The only other admitted student was several years back and was a recruited athlete. I have to believe that the adcoms saw past the ranking and looked at the whole package. </p>
<p>There are so many factors that are out of our control, like rankings, that I chose not to worry about it. Focus on what can be controlled and let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>Thanks, hmom5! Your insight is always helpful.</p>
<p>A bit OT, but I’m curious as to what college do with unranked students from schools with which they are unfamiliar (i.e. from which they receive very, very few applications). They obviously still have the info the school provides about its academics as well as a counselor’s ranking estimate (which I didn’t know about before. You learn something new everyday!), but couldn’t the actual rigor of the high school vary pretty widely without the adcom really knowing?</p>
<p>Schools that don’t rank are almost always extremely competitive, and the college will therefore know of them. It happens quite often, SeniorSlacker: college adcoms are known for their not-so-objective decisions. Of course, we fail to remember that they are human and unfortunate decisions are made all too often.</p>
<p>Ranking at S1 & S2’s HS is horrible and meaningless. A single B drops one out of the top 10% (a class of over 400), and there is no weighting. Plenty of kids take no AP and few honors courses and get 4.0s. Two Bs barely puts one in the top 25%. S1 was ranked 185/405, he’s now at UChicago; they must not put much stock in rank.</p>
<p>There are some generalizations we can make–far from absolute–but true in many cases:</p>
<p>–The high schools selective colleges don’t know tend not to be competitive ones, tend to be in underrepresented places, tend to have more students they may be interested in who are low income, URM and first gen. Rank matters less for students at these schools in these categories.</p>
<p>–When rankings don’t make sense again, it’s not usually a competitive HS. If it were, parents would be at the front gates demanding their ivy bound student not be impacted by this unfair system. At these schools the regional rep will make a big effort to see where the applicant really stands as they want representation from such schools.</p>
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<p>I think that they look harder at test scores from these applicants.</p>
<p>Our high school ranks the top 20 students. After that…the “rankings” are done in deciles. To be honest, a good class rank will not outweigh other weaknesses in a college application.</p>
<p>Rankings, in some cases, might be important at a small, rural school – like the one my son attended. Many of the students believed that the higher ranking helped in gaining admission to some selective state schools.</p>
<p>Whatever the school’s policy - to rank or not to rank - the actual position of the student in relation to his school peers gets pretty fully expressed on the common app form that the guidance counselor must complete.</p>
<p>ellemenope, I agree - that’s what SAT/ACT scores are for. So colleges can compare between different schools, especially those that they are not as familiar with.</p>
<p>Also, some semantics that have been bugging me - if your school reports deciles, they ARE ranking! I’m tired of reading people that say, “Our school doesn’t rank, they only report deciles.” DECILES ARE RANKS. They are not as precise as individual numbers, but there is a big difference between the 2nd decile and the 6th decile, and colleges use it, and it’s based on comparing the kids’ GPAs. Hence it is a rank.</p>
<p>If your hs has 200 kids in your class, there is honestly not much difference between the kid who is # 23 and the kid who is # 28. That’s why schools go with deciles. Colleges like deciles. And they do consider them to be ranks.</p>
<p>(sorry, rant over… I’ll get off my soap box now!)</p>