<p>Wouldn´t it make sense to just give the top weighted gpa of the class (as the common app asks for on the GC report) and the gpa at the 75th and maybe 50th percentiles? And then colleges can figure out where a kid fits in based on this or some other combination of benchmark gpas.</p>
<p>JHS - that kind of sounds like cheating!</p>
<p>I am somewhat sensitive to the rankings game. My son graduated with a perfect uw 4.0 and probably took the hardest possible course schedule (IB diploma plus 7 classes in 7 periods - no lunch, no study hall). But he took some non-honors classes because of his passion for singing and the usual required ones - PE, health, and a “practical course”, so that he was not even in the top 5% of his graduating class. Despite his ranking he was able to get into a top Ivy League college (and no other student did). Many students who were higher ranked simply did not take any non-honors classes that were not required and it was possible to “waive” out of some of those. He didn’t care about being Val or Sal and even if wis75’s suggestion of additional weight for a fuller schedule or Zebe’s schools honors ranking for 3rd or 4th year of music he probably wouldn’t have been one anyway. His class was the last one at his HS where they had a numerical rank, after that they have gone to a “no ranking” system (although they still do Val and Sal). I guess that the one thing that I take away from this experience is that even at the highest rated colleges, class rank is not everything.</p>
<p>Our school doesn’t rank but they do put a table in the school profile that shows the number of students in each grade decile. It’s easy to figure out where your child falls. </p>
<p>They also list all of the courses available at the school - college prep, honors, AP, IB.</p>
<p>If the colleges were simply plugging in GPAs and ranks into their computers and accepting students on the basis of that, I would be worried. But that is not the case. They actually look at the whole application and it’s not too hard to see which kids have had the more challenging workloads vs. those that taken the easiest classes available. In fact, on the GC sheet that accompanies each individual application from our school, the GC has to check off what level of curriculum the student took - most demanding (doesn’t matter if it was IB or AP), demanding, average, below average, etc. </p>
<p>If I were a adcom at a selective college, I would look for those applications that indicated that the student took the most challenging coursework available to him or her. I would then look for consistency among the various factors in a student’s application. Is the GPA in line with the test scores? Are they teacher recommendations strong or do they suggest a child who didn’t work up to his or her potential? Did the child show dedication to his or her ECs? You get the point. </p>
<p>Just a hunch, but I doubt that many students who only took the easiest classes get into the more selective colleges.</p>
<p>I would be curious why they are considering this. If it is not to hurt anyone’s feelings then I say leave it as it is. To avoid bad feelings our local school has stopped publishing the honor roll list, stopped having a homecoming king/queen and stopped having team captains. They say it is not fair to those who don’t make the cut. How on earth are these kids going to deal with real life?</p>
<p>MomLive – The issue, if there is one (I’m not sure), is not whether valedictorians who got straight As get into the most selective colleges. They don’t, at least not unless they are darn good football players and/or share a name with a library. It’s whether deserving , ambitious students who are ranked lower because they don’t get enough credit for their 15 APs, etc., are being disadvantaged when they apply to the most selective colleges because their high school says they are ranked #11 or something. </p>
<p>I tend to think that the college admissions departments correct for that, but maybe not, or maybe not enough. I look at the Brown website, and I see that they make a big deal about how many valedictorians and salutatorians they have, and I wonder whether that ever makes a difference in the selection process. I note that none of the ten or so kids I know at Brown was a valedictorian or salutatorian, so it obviously doesn’t make a difference in every case.</p>
<p>After reading the link to the “National Association for College Admission Counseling report” in post #5, I feel a lot better about the class rank issue. It doesn’t appear to be a huge issue in the college application process. On page 57…</p>
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<p>Thanks iHS76 for posting this. Very informative document about the whole admission process.</p>
<p>^^^To give credit where credit is due, the original link was provided by MomPhD.</p>
<p>:: sits on the couch next to Schmoomcgoo ::</p>
<p>:: passes Schmoomcgoo the popcorn bowl ::</p>