<p>I have a 3.8 UW and 4.3 W at my public high school, but I'm ranked around 70 out of around 400 (using UW GPAs), which is top 20%. By the end of HS, I will have taken 8 APs and 2 honors, so I have a pretty strong schedule. And I have a 2340 SAT I.</p>
<p>But now I'm looking at it, and my rank looks pretty bad... 60?? I applied to a few Ivies and other top tier privates. Does this set me back far? I know that rank is looked at to see how you compare to other students in your class, but since my school uses unweighted GPAs (and I bet many others do too), rank seems like a pretty useless number to me. How much do colleges even take rank into consideration?</p>
<p>Well...first of all, let me say that I think that unweighted rank is hugely unfair. So I feel for you---your true, weighted rank whould likely be a decent amount higher. You will probably get some sympathy/understanding from colleges over this, but...you must know that the top colleges have 90%+ kids who were ranked in the top 10% of their class. If you go on Brown's website, for example, you will see that 24% of kids ranked 1-5 in their class are accepted. 14% of the rest of top 5% kids are admitted. 7% of the kids ranked in the second top 5% are admitted. 5% of the kids in the second decile are admitted, and the numbers keep decreasing. Brown's overall acceptance rate last year was 14%. So...rank does seem to be pretty important. 5% isn't zero! But it's not a great amount, either.</p>
<p>The same stats for Brown also show that approx 25% of those with SAT scores (verbal, math) in the 750-800 range are admitted. Most likely the OP has SAT scores in this range. I don't think any of us can say for sure which would be more important in the OP's case.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to say that the OP should give up all hope. I am sure that the 5% of people with second decile ranks who were admitted had something very real going for them, and high SAT scores are certainly a plus. But looking at the stats, rank seems to be quite important. Comparing SAT scores and rank, you have to go down to the 500 level SAT scores (scores that we at CC would consider quite uncompetitive) to reach an acceptance rate comparable to that of a 2nd decile rank. That tells me that rank IS important...usually fewer than 10% of admitted students at the top schools are not ranked in the top 10%, and many of these kids will have a hook--athletics, etc.--that is more substantial than great test scores, which aren't <em>that</em> rare at these schools. The OP asked how much colleges take rank into consideration...unfortunately, the answer is quite a bit. I hope that the OP does well in admissions, because his/her rank is unfairly handicapping them.</p>
<p>Rank isn't that important it's just something that the colleges can brag about. You got two kids one has a 95 average the other has an 85. They both rank 10 out of 100 in their classes. So what does it mean? Did one go to a hard school and one go to a easy school, did one take upper level classes and the other didn't. Most schools now either may consider it or don't weight it at all since at the end of the day it's just apples and pears so to speak. That is why they look at the whole student.</p>
<p>Yes, I'm adding to what I said earlier. Not only do all high schools not rank, but some are more prestigious than others (eg magnet schools). A student who ranks top 20% in a rigorous high school might rank 5% at another high school. I'm pretty sure colleges take this into consideration.</p>
<p>^^All of this is true...but the fact still remains that, when a rank is available, more than 90% of a top college's admitted students are ranked within the top 10%. Again, I'm not saying that there is no way that anyone ranked lower than top 10% can get in--more than 90% is not 100%, and a 5% acceptance rate is not 0%. But if your school ranks, you are usually at a disadvantage if you are not within the top 10%--there really is no other way to look at it. More than 90% is too large a number to draw another conclusion, in my opinion. The OP said that his school was pretty competitive, but not incredibly competitive (reading between the lines a bit). </p>
<p>All that said, the fact that the OP's rank is unweighted will work in his favor, and he certainly is not out of the running at the top schools. I'm just trying to be realistic here, looking at the numbers--when available, rank seems to be fairly important.</p>