I’m a rising senior which means college applications are just around the corner for me. Unfortunately, I’ve found that my class rank has slipped consistently since freshman year…just because my schedule got messed up and I’ve taken less honors/AP classes than other people. I have a 4.0 UW, but my weighted GPA doesn’t place me in the top 10% of my class. I’ve seen many schools I’m interested in advertising student profiles with the vast majority in the top 10% of their class. The rest of my stats should be fine (36 ACT composite and 2380 on the old SAT) but I’m wondering how much weight class rank - specifically, being in the top 10% - plays in the admissions process.
While many schools say they don’t rank, the truth is that they usually send “school profiles” with transcripts that allow schools to figure out where a student is ranked. But when they don’t list the exact rank, colleges can disregard the rank that they can figure out. So if you look at the Common Data Sets you will see that most of the students were in the top ranks but you will also see that the % whose rank was submitted tends to be very low. So, yes, those that list it may have been in the top 10% but only 50% submitted ranks. {all this garbage is linked to Bob Morse’s rankings in the US New-horrible!-He has single handedly screwed up the entire process!}.
Given your scores and grades, I would not worry too much about rank. I doubt it will factor in at all for you.
@lostaccount Thank you for your quick and clear reply. I feel much more confident now. It’s just a bit overwhelming, thinking about admissions!