<p>I am literally like 2 people away from being in the top 10% of my class. My grades are higher than 89% of my class. Would it really make that much of a difference if my gpa were .1% higher and I were in the top 10%? Will farily selective schools care one way or the other?</p>
<p>I’m in the same situation… I doubt that the admissions officers are so unreasonable that being a negligible amount above 10% is going to make any difference.</p>
<p>It depends on what school.</p>
<p>But imnotcertin has it wrong. Colleges report the number that were top 10%. They guard this stat like they guard their babies. To let you in without it they need a GREAT reason. So those students are recruited athletes, wealthy legacies and URMs at schools where under 25% were not top 10%.</p>
<p>And at top schools where 95% were top 10%, unhooked applicants below top 3% rarely get in. The vast majority of the unhooked at ivies, for example, are top 2-not 2%-in their class.</p>
<p>I agree with Waverly, it definitely depends on what school and then it depends on your test scores and ECs, along with recs and essays. If using the SAT, your CR and M scores really come into play. I’m not sure your decile will be good enough for the Ivy/Ivy-equivalent schools, if that’s where you’re applying, with a CR plus M score below 1400 combined with a decile even around top 10%.</p>
<p>Some schools list it as an “important” consideration (like Northwestern), while others list it as only “considered”. If you look at a school like UPenn, they do hoard their top-10% stat and it’s above 99% for a reason. </p>
<p>However, half of the applicants to top schools do not have class ranks for a reason too! At top-100 type public HS and elite private schools, rank is often cutthroat, and those who aren’t loading their schedule for rank purposes are left in the dust. Rank can be just as misleading as GPA; is being only 40 of 400 as meaningful if you go to an inner city school where only a couple dozen kids actually care about academics? </p>
<p>This is a holistic admissions process, and class rank is just one of many things they look at when determining your academics (and your ability to perform academically at their school). If you have a great SAT score, you’re taking the hardest classes, grade up in a couple subjects, your teachers think you’re great, and your high school is tippy top with good track record to top schools, I strongly believe rank loses its importance. </p>
<p>When you look at the stats schools release for admittance rate, you’ll notice that outside of top-5% the acceptance rate plummets. I believe this is due to the fact that these students are generally less competitive in most aspects, and keep in mind only a fraction of a percent of high schools are truly the schools were you can have a low class rank and still be a great student. But indeed, correlation does not imply causation. </p>
<p>All in all? Class rank matters, just like every aspect of an application you submit- subjectives, SAT’s, GPA, rigor, ap exams, etc. But like jshain said, the officer will look at the entire context of you as an academic student, and a sub-1400 CR+M may not help your case. Okay, this person has a low class rank… but his SAT’s are good. He took the hardest schedule available. He was probably hurt by stumbling through freshman year, before he could adjust. His teachers think he’s a great student in class. He did well in his AP exams, even if some of the corresponding classes were B’s. He is clearly a rock-solid student and can do well at our school. </p>
<p>Do you think you are that student?</p>
<p>When you have 5X the number of fully qualified, high GPA/high SAT that you can accept, why would you even parse the particulars of those not offering the full package?</p>
<p>I think you’re only thinking about HYPSM, other ivies, etc. where they’re always saying they can fill up their freshman class five different ways. Look, I know you have a lot of expertise, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as one arbitrary, often misrepresentative number. I don’t dispute that it’s harder to be holistic when you have that >10% number staring you in the face as an admissions officer, but it’s difficult to define the “complete package” as clearly as you’re making it to be.</p>
<p>In many cases, that can even be the great GPA/SAT scores as you mentioned, wonderful recs, but a lower rank. Unhooked applicants with lower stats still get accepted and unhooked applicants with higher stats still get rejected without fail.</p>
<p>Regarding rank, I would like for you to consider this, since you’ve been an admissions counselor before: An applicant has a 3.86 GPA (4.34 weighted) and a 2260 SAT. GC has marked most rigorous schedule, and he took 5 AP’s junior year and is taking 6 senior year, mostly 5’s on his AP tests and is a year up in math. His teachers all thought highly of him, and his counselor knows him well and wrote a great recommendation. Unfortunately, he stumbled out of the gates freshman year and goes to an extremely cutthroat, hich-achieving high school, and subsequently is ranked out of the top-15% (the counselor even adresses the rank in his letter). What do you think of this kid, just looking at him from an academic perspective? </p>
<p>by the way, sorry if I’m hijacking this thread. I think class rank is a very interesting issue to discuss as a whole, and I hope I’m not detracting from the original question.</p>
<p>I think it’s simple. If the school has only a few percent not in the top 10%, your hypothetical candidate isn’t getting in. There’s only room for hooked candidates they really want in that small number. When the school has at least double digits not in the top 10%, there’s more wiggle room.</p>
<p>As you said, the vast, vast majority of high performing high schools don’t rank. So top schools don’t often have this problem with kids they want to accept anyway.</p>
<p>I have sats above 1400/2100, and I have good EC’s. Im not applying to ivies, but at schools like University of Richmond, William and mary, or Wake Forest will being in the 89th percentile hurt me?</p>
<p>Here is a link to the W & M common data set:</p>
<p>[William</a> & Mary -*Common Data Set](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/offices/iae/institutional_research_reporting/cds/index.php]William”>http://www.wm.edu/offices/iae/institutional_research_reporting/cds/index.php)</p>
<p>It tells us that 79% were top 10%. Look up your other schools. If you learn to intrepret a CDS, you won’t need chances threads because they are much more informative than the average poster here.</p>
<p>CG --</p>
<p>You really ask a few questions here. </p>
<p>First – how important is it if you fall just below some bright line. Unfortunately, for some schools it is pretty important – they’re looking at the metrics and want as many students in a particular category as possible. For others, probably not so important. They recognize that in a case like yours, the difference between top 10% or not may be whether you had the easy grader is 9th grade spanish or the harder one. Small differences in GPA are not that important to them.</p>
<p>Second – looking at Waverly’s comment. If William & Mary has 79% in the top 10%, it probably means that the median is somewhere near the top 6% or top 7%. So, your rank is probably below average by more than a couple of slots.</p>
<p>However, your SATs appear to be significantly above average for that school, so this can balance out the ranking. Also, your class ranking is close enough that it shouldn’t knock you out completely.</p>
<p>Overall – your list doesn’t look bad. However, recognizing that relatively speaking, your application has strengths and weaknesses (as do most students’), make sure that you have a couple of safety or semi-safety schools, just in case.</p>
<p>Here’s the most important thing – if your stats are even remotely close, APPLY. Don’t let people here talk you out of trying to get into a school you really want to go to.</p>
<p>If the colleges care about their US News ranking–and they all do, though they may not say so–HS class rank is very important. For national universities and national liberal arts colleges, the percentage of the entering class who ranked in the top 10% of their HS class counts for 40% of the “selectivity” score, which in turn counts for 15% of the total US News score. So that means % ranking in the top 10% of HS class counts for a full 6% of the college’s US News ranking, or nearly as much as SAT/ACT scores (7.5%). As far as US News is concerned, HS GPA doesn’t count at all, but HS class rank is very important.</p>
<p>At William & Mary, 79% of entering freshman rank in the top 10% of their HS class (but only 42% reported a class rank). At Wake Forest, the percentage in the top 10% is 80% (but only 58% reported a class rank). At U Richmond, 54% of entering freshmen rank in the top 10% of their HS class (but only 33% report a class rank).</p>
<p>So in general, class rank matters. A lot. More than GPA, nd almost as much as test scores.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there are a lot of games going on here. Most elite private schools have figured out they’re better off not reporting class ranks, because that means a higher percentage of their graduates can get into top colleges. I’m sure it helps out prep school jocks, too; as long as that star lacrosse player gets a decent SAT score, his admission doesn’t hurt the admitting college, because his HS GPA and non-existent class rank count for nothing. And it systematically disadvantages public HS grads because almost inveriably publis high schools do rank. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m skeptical that a school like U Richmond would have only 33% of its entering freshmen coming from schools that do rank. Are we getting full disclosure here?</p>
<p>It’s not just private high schools that have stopped ranking, this is being done at competitive publics as well. More and more schools understand that ranking is a disservice to their students. This is a cause the highly educated suburban mom brigade took on the past decade. Thank you US News.</p>
<p>At small LACs that get a disproportionate number of private school and competitive public school students, it’s not so surprising most of their students are unranked.</p>
<p>The problem with top 10% is that it’s a cliff. If a class has 200 students, the difference between #20 and #21 is probably insignificant, but the consequence may be huge. </p>
<p>There are, of course, ways to mitigate this somewhat, but the arbitrariness is disturbing.</p>