<p>This was probably discussed before, but my search of the forum didn't show anything, so I suppose I'll ask it here.</p>
<p>Just how important is high school ranking to college admissions? I ask because my high school is seriously considering the discontinuation of ranking its students. Now, my gut reaction is that it would obviously hurt students at the very top of their class (top 5ish) aspiring for HYPS, but I'm not entirely sure on the matter.</p>
<p>And what about state schools? Would not being ranked actually help students who might otherwise be denied at state schools due to poor rankings?</p>
<p>I've read plenty of threads were posters simply respond by saying "your counselor will know about where you fall", but is there a disadvantage to not knowing your exact rank in terms of both elite college admissions and state college admissions?</p>
<p>I think ranks hurts students that do no graduate in the top ten percent of their class. If you look at the data on the common data sets for alot of the top schools, less than half of the students supplied rank. I believe many competetive high schools have discontinued the practice of supplying rank. Some schools supply a grid showing where the student placed.</p>
<p>I just can’t help think that it can hurt a person’s chance of admission to some of the top schools when they say that 95-99% of their acceptances are in the top 10% of the class. If the ranking is not given, this statistics doesn’t come into play and they can focus on other parts of the application. </p>
<p>Again if you’re in the top 10% of your class, you need not worry. If you’re not in the top 10% of the class, I think disclosing rank can hurt.</p>
<p>Not ranking is typical at competitive high schools to try to discourage overt student and parent competition. The bottom line is that high schools give colleges enough information to figure out where students rank.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with redroses here.
My high school doesn’t rank at all, yet our kids do just fine getting into competitive colleges and such. I think colleges should be able to see how well you do based on your own information.
I don’t believe in ranking anyway, because sometimes, you get those students with the 99 average who took zero APs, honors, etc. who end being valedictorian…then you’ve got the hardcore AP-loaded kids with the lower 90s. In this case, being 1/500 isn’t that great…just my opinion.</p>
<p>There are hundreds of posts on this issue–maybe thousands. Rank and rigor are of paramount importance–they go hand in hand. If your school doesn’t rank there is a good chance the schools to which you apply have enough historical information about your HS to figure out a rank.</p>
<p>But wouldn’t this system hurt students who are at the top of their grid? Say, for example, a school only ranks by quarter. Wouldn’t rank 26 in a class of 100 be hurt because it would simply be reported at top 50% when the student is actually much closer to top 25%? </p>
<p>1) If my high school decides to stop ranking, it will be new to the list of schools that don’t rank, so I’m not sure how much information colleges will have on it.</p>
<p>2) I understand that rank is of paramount importance, and I also know that counselors can figure about about where you fall (as I stated in my first post). However, the question is whether or not EXACT ranking is beneficial/detrimental for students looking at elite colleges and state colleges.</p>
<p>I think that the whole ranking thing is stupid. At my school they treat the 10 % like they are the smartest kids, which is not true… I think there are a lot of kids who have worked harder. Top 10% kids get to wear different gowns at graduation… and all that. I think it should not be that way. Having a perfect GPA depends on a lot of factors, such as personal and sucking up to teachers. ( i’m not saying they all do it, but we all know that there are a lot of teachers who grade based on how much they like you.)
Not being n top of the class doesnt mean you are not capable of doing well in college.</p>
<p>Colleges use school profiles, historical data from hgh schools and call counselors at high schools (I was one at top high schools for many years) ad can pinpoint pretty much exactly where everyone ranks. Rank is key to top colleges, number 2 and number 5 from an average school is a major difference.</p>
<p>I have my beef with my son’s high school because there are no weighted classes. So the kid that has taken the easiest courses and the kid that has taken the hardest courses could end up both at the top of the class. To me that is not fair to all the kids that have taken the most rigorous course load and they end up in the 20-30% decile while kids that skated by with the easiest course load end up in the top 10%. To me if you are going to supply any kind of ranking - you have to weight classes.</p>
<p>^Agreed.
I’m not sure that ranking is fair anyway (my son went to a very demanding private school that did not rank). But if you are going to go through this exercise of ranking, you don’t want to discourage students from taking the more challenging classes and therefore you must weight. Even when you do, ranking is still only fair when students take the exact same sequence, otherwise you are always comparing apples/oranges. </p>
<p>If student 1 took AP English/History/Latin while student 2 took AP Math/Physics/Chem and wound up with the exact same grades, can you really say they are “the same?” They took completely different subjects and you can’t compare them (nor should you).</p>
<p>I totally disagree with almost everything. If you rank, I think it should be unweighted. Otherwise it turns into an arms race for AP classes and ends up hurting classes like Band and Choir.</p>
<p>The best way I’ve seen to do it is just to count all classes equally and give a slightly easier grading curve to the APs.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve always felt GPA is worthless if you supply rank. I feel like no College is going to say “Oh no! A 3.7!” if a 3.7 puts you at number 3 out of 300 in your class.</p>
<p>Yes, colleges want the student who has challenged herself by taking more APs. APs should be weighted to negate the validictorian who eased on through HS with Office Helper, Study Hall, and Band.</p>