I was wondering how much Ranking plays in the admissions decision.
My one son who has a 3.8 Unweighted GPA and a 30 ACT score recently dropped in overall ranking due to taking harder classes then some of he peers. His grades still show mostly A’s but we go by percentages and his 88 (B) in AP English is lower then his other friends’ 100 in Music appreciation. Thus, he has dropped in ranking. This isn’t his only grade difference, but you get the picture. Having 91 in advanced classes vs a lesser class of 99 and so on.
He is still in the top 10%, but not in top 5% anymore.
I don’t think it is huge. Many HS do not even rank and every school ranks differently. And the difficulty level of courses taken will be taken into account when a college review’s each applicant’s transcript.
The most selective colleges tend to prefer students who choose the most challenging courses, yet still get top grades. Schools a notch less selective (which cannot fill their classes with students who all get A+ in Calc BC) will tend to prefer the student who gets a B+ in Calculus over one who gets an A+ in Basket Weaving.
Both my kids were 94 (UW) average, 96 (W, but not very generous weighting-- they took TONS of AP classes). They are at Yale and Swarthmore respectively. Draw your own conclusions.
It depends on where he’s applying, but I don’t think ranking matters as much as the GPA itself compared to the courses. I wasn’t high ranking at my school, but I got into MIT because I had a great GPA and people around me took the softer APs and got A’s in them.
As long as he doesn’t drop below the 3.8 he should be fine for a lot of great schools. Also (I’m assuming he is a junior) second semester junior year is when rankings are finalized and a lot of people’s slots change, so I’d suspect he could even go up as long as he does well. But I’d focus on the GPA over the rank any day.
Good luck!
Depends on the philosophy of the school. Some universities and college will not include freshman grades or they want GPA for specific classes and remove electives. I have seen schools state they want top 10% while another wants top 25%. The best thing is to check what the specific university wants. Also verify if it applies for all majors or is different for more difficult majors (ex, business major vs engineer).
Look at the secondary school report: http://www.du.edu/apply/media/documents/2012CASSR.pdf
The counselor is going to have to “rank” the student even if the school doesn’t rank. For academic achievement, the counselor may check off top 5% even if your kid’s ranking is top 10% because he is taking more rigorous courses, especially if the ranking is unweighted. Have a conversation with the GC to see which box he/she is going to check off.
I am not an admission person, but I would think how a student is compared to his peers would be more important to his overall GPA. This is also true of his recommendation letters. His teachers will be asked to compare him with other students.
Just look up the Common Data Set for your schools of interest, section C7. As was mentioned up thread, UT highly values class rank (more than just about anything). Other schools not so much.
We were told that college re-calculate ranking any way. You do not know how his rank will be re-calculated. The reason for our inquiry was that D’s school did not rank at all. Admisiion said that they calculate it even in cases when ranking is not provided based on student’s transcript and HS profile. Which again lead to another question as at D’s school number of APs was severely limited. Again, colleges are aware of the general rigor at such schools (D’s was the most rogorous HS in our are that included wider area than our minicipality). And again, they were correct as D. has discovered later at college that regular classes in her HS were taught at higher level than others’ AP versions of the same class. Believe me, the colleges are aware of more than just simple weighted GPA and taking much more into account, which could be also the college success of the previous students coming from the same HS.
I agree with @MiamiDAP wholeheartedly. The upper tier colleges will look to see that the child takes the most rigorous course load available to them and did well. My D’s high school is infamous for not having any students graduate with 4.0 but they are definitely a feeder school to the Ivies and most of the top ranked schools. He should have top grades in the most rigorous course load he can craft in his school. And yes, an A- or B+ in a tough, tough class is so much better than an A+ in basket weaving. However, there are schools that accept using rank, in those cases, it is important.
Also, all AP’s are not created equal. Most colleges know which schools have AP classes where no one ever gets an A. Again, these schools and students are always on their radar. The AP score is more indicative of rigor. I know kids at schools that get A+ in an AP class but a 2 or 3 on the test. My D got her lowest grade ever in APUSH (a B+), but got a 5 on the test.
The only time I saw a difference for DS who took the hardest classes was when it came to merit scholarships. Some colleges give more merit dollars if you are in the top x% of your class.
So for the Ivies that is irrelevant since they do not do merit scholarships only need based. As I said, for those schools where ranking is important, then they should most definitely strive to be as high as they can.
It depends on the school. Look at the common data set for schools your son is interested in. Bucknell has 68% of their students in the top 10% of their HS class and an average GPA of 3.56. Lafayette is a 63% and 3.47. Meanwhile, Messiah College is only at 29% of students in the top 10% of their HS class and an average GPA of 3.74.
I do think it varies by college - I think it’s hard to separate rank and GPA. Selective colleges care a lot about having students who take a rigorous schedule and get good grades - that generally translates into a good rank So even if say Harvard says they don’t care about rank that much - it will be very rare that they will take (at least from our school) anyone out of the top 2 or 3% rank. But it makes sense for them to say they don’t care about rank because there is a sizable subset of other schools (elite privates, a handful of magnet schools) whose student body is so strong it would be silly for them to only look at the top 5% of the class.
Not all hs rank, not all colleges re-rank (despite what’s often asserted on CC) and not all colleges take grades from a hs that doesn’t rank and try to magically convert it to a mythical rank. They can look at whether the GC says “most rigorous” and they definitely look at the transcript. Also, as said, what matters most is grades in subjects related to the possible major.
If his school reports that B as an 88, that’s darned close to a 90.