<p>My class rank is a bit lower than most people who are trying to get into Ivy league schools. I'm probably going to be around 25th in a class of around 335.
I keep hearing about people who were top 10 in a class of 500 but still got rejected from Cornell and Penn (my top two choices)</p>
<p>The thing is, my school is notorious for being competitive (I think we were ranked among the top 5 high schools in the state, and the top public school). Will that help my case and explain my lower class rank?</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Texas cares about rank but not GPA. California cares about GPA but not rank. And many schools are somewhere in between.</p>
<p>you’re still top 10%. don’t worry about it</p>
<p>It depends on where you’re applying. Schools like UT Austin care about rank only, not your GPA. You are still in the top 10% so it’s really not that big of a deal. Just have an overall stellar application and you’ll be fine. Ivies reject a lot of extremely smart people. A guy at my school got a 2400 SAT, 4.0 UW/4.3 W, 36 ACT, good ECs, probably good recs and essays, high SAT IIs and still didn’t get in to any of the Ivies except Cornell. Nobody can really accurately predict your chances for Ivies, they reject a lot of extraordinarily smart people, and then there are some people who get in and it’s a total surprise. Don’t worry about it, your rank is still good. Just apply and see what happens.</p>