<p>hmom5 – I think that being in the top 10% probably matters, but the difference between #1 and #3 would seem to be very slight. And there are circumstantial issues to consider, in this instance it should not harm the kid at all.</p>
<p>There are 27000 high schools in the U.S. If every single valedictorian, all 27,000 of them, was qualified to go to Harvard because he or she was a valedictorian, then Harvard would have 108,000 students. It doesn’t. Many students aren’t valedictorians. Your son will be alright as long as colleges see that he is pursuing his goals with course rigor and by taking the appropriate classes.</p>
<p>I never said they didn’t care about rank. Certainly being in the top decile matters, unless you are coming from one of the ultra-fancy NYC privates (which probably don’t rank) or world-famous publics. I just don’t think the difference between #1 and #6 matters much, except in situations where #1 is just head and shoulders above everyone else.</p>
<p>If I were running admissions somewhere, I certainly wouldn’t take a high school’s ranking unexamined, though. There’s too much variation in how they do it, and in many cases it is unlikely to reflect the college’s value scheme. What I would do – and what I therefore imagine many colleges do, since it seems logical – would be to make a threshold determination whether a student had undertaken a challenging-enough curriculum. If not, the application would essentially be disregarded. If so, GPA and rank (to the extent possible) would be recalculated in some standard way, on an unweighted basis. I might add up to a very limited number of “style points” for students who clearly went above and beyond what was expected of them (.1 or .2 at most).</p>
<p>Well, when you hear that “such and such” school routinely sends 10-20 kids each year to ivies, then obviously 8-18 of them aren’t Vals or Sals…unless these are those crazy schools that name multiple Vals and Sals. :)</p>
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<p>My son was recently rejected from an Ivy. He chose to keep Theater in his schedule. Of course there is no way of knowing why he was rejected, but if it was Theater, we’d do the same thing given another chance.</p>
<p>I think asking a kid to give up something they are passionate about on the pretty slim chance that being ranked #2 instead of #1 will make a difference is not worth the risks. Teens need to keep balance in their lives as well, classes such as music and theater can do a lot to keep them engaged and happy.</p>