<p>Go to any college that accepts you. You do not need to break thru closed doors to be successful in your life. It is up to you, what you do at colege and how well you do it, name of your UG is very secondary consideration. This is from my and my H’s experiences (both MBA) and experiences of our 2 children, one - Graphic designer, another is Medical Student at highly ranked Medical School. Nobody in our family went to prestigious / Elite UG.</p>
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<p>Yes, they look at course work for rigor, but GPA is “not considered”, according to its Common Data Set.</p>
<p>[Common</a> Data Set | Office of Information Management & Analysis](<a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/academic/ima/cds]Common”>http://www.utexas.edu/academic/ima/cds)</p>
<p>You will have to inform them of the personal challenges you faced soph. + jr. years and ask them to keep that in mind when looking at your class rank.</p>
<p>You have great scores and will get in somewhere just fine.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback. </p>
<p>In regards to the comment mathmom made, and one or two others, I’m not complaining because I didn’t get those As. I admit, I should have tried harder. But in all fairness, I took a lot harder classes than the majority of those ranked higher than me. And a few Bs should not be in the bottom 50% of a class, no matter what the situation- especially when there are at least 70 people ahead of me in class rank who have not take more than a few honors classes, whereas I have taken them all. </p>
<p>And yes, my high school ranks unfortunately. I talked to my counselor about this and he said there was really nothing I could do about it other than hope that universities will look more at my other merits :(</p>
<p>You could ask your counselor to put your grades in context in his counselor rec. Your teacher recs could help with this, too.</p>
<p>Hunt,
Absolutely, that is exactly the kind of thing the GC rec is for.</p>
<p>I can guarantee that NYU accepts many, many students who are not in the top 50% of their classes . . . but they do probably come from schools that don’t give out an official class rank, not from large publics.</p>
<p>I suspect that the OP has a real problem at NYU. Luckily, NYU is not the only college left on Earth. It IS rather cool, or its location is, but it doesn’t offer up any secret knowledge unavailable to people who study elsewhere. The OP should recognize that if NYU isn’t willing to give his or her application a serious read – and I’m not saying I know they won’t, only that it’s possible – then despite its attractions it isn’t really the kind of institution that reflects his or her values, and other colleges are probably better choices in the end.</p>
<p>Your GC can note that you took a more rigorous path. But, I think this works best when the B’s are because you took tougher classes- and did as best you could. Not so much if you “should have tried harder.” How many kids in those tougher classes got those easy A’s? We don’t know your full reality. Just find the confidence to pull together the best app you can. Good luck.</p>
<p>Here’s a suggestion–ask your counselor if he’d be willing to calculate what your GPA/rank would probably be if your school had weighted grades, and to state that in his rec.</p>
<p>It’s not totally clear to me if your high school uses the unweighted GPA to determine rank, if they do, you should ask your GC if they can estimate what your rank might be with a weighted GPA (this would be a lot of work and probably won’t happen), or if they can put in a statement such as, “ZVF’s rank does not reflect that this student took a more rigorous course load than many who are ranked higher.”</p>
<p>You need to apply to schools with a range of selectivity levels - safety, match, and reach, just like any other student. You should still apply to NYU.</p>
<p>Does your HS have Naviance? Hopefully your GC will be able to offer some good suggestions of schools to consider.</p>
<p>Are you interested in any schools that offer non-binding EA or rolling admissions? If you got an early acceptance, you could concentrate on reach schools.</p>
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<p>Don’t forget cost and financial aid considerations. A safety must be definitely affordable as well as one that will definitely admit you.</p>
<p>NYU should be considered a reach at best if you need a lot of financial aid.</p>
<p>BTW, school rank is determined by college, no matter if HS ranks or not. If school does not rank, college calculates rank based on applicant GPA and class profile, which HS have to make available. they also might recalculate the rank, stripping weighted and considering rigor of classes. It is all just a game and something that does not need to be considered clsely at all. Just apply widely, see where you are accepted, choose UG that fits your personality and wide range of interests the best, try very hard, as close as possible to college GPA = 4.0 and you will be all set no matter what is your next step. It is all up to your hard work, name of you college is secondary and sometime (Med. School admission is one example) completely unimportant. My D. graduated #1 in her HS and had unbelievable 4 years at state UG, still misses it a lot. Do not underestimate the importance of college/applicant match, the rest is up to you as academic and other opportunities abd great bunch of very top caliber kids (valedictorians from private schools and such) are everywhere.</p>
<p>OP, you need to take a look at your school’s profile. That’s the document that your GC will send along with the GC recommendation and your transcript as part of your application package. Ideally, the profile explains the school’s grading policy, e.g. the scale (0-4.0, 0-100, or other), if and how weighting is applied, and the number of marking periods per school year. The profile would then also explain how class rank is calculated. You want to see if your school profile explains that ranking is based on unweighted GPA. </p>
<p>Many high school profiles also list what honors, AP and/or IB courses they offer, along with the number of students who take AP and IB, and the pass rate. </p>
<p>If all of this information is on the school profile, then you are in good shape for being evaluated in the context of your school. Especially if your GC indicates that you took the most rigorous schedule possible. If it’s NOT on the profile, then you should encourage the school to update the profile. Better yet, have one of your parents volunteer to update the profile. If you still can’t get the thing changed, ask your GC (who you hopefully haven’t alienated) to include that information in the GC recommendation.</p>
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So the GC will have to calculate the weighted grades for the entire class? Devising his/her own weighting scale? To what end?
It’s true colleges will try to calculate a ranking if necessary based on the school profile. I don’t think it’s possible to devise a different ranking system based on the profile. I don’t think there’s enough info about the other students.</p>
<p>OP, you need to open you aperture a little bit. Schools that use the common app agree to use a holistic evaluation system, some not weighting class rank much. Some public Us don’t even consider class rank - UCB, UGA, Washington, WVA, to just name some of the flagships.</p>
<p>Sybbie719 Quote:
If my school didn’t engage so heavily in grade inflation I would statistically be a very competitive applicant for NYU. </p>
<p>Perhaps your gpa would not even be as high as it is now. You stated that your gpa dropped substantially sophomore and junior year. This is the reason that you will not be a competitve applicant, not your allegations that everyone else’s grades are inflated. </p>
<p>The kid has a 3.75, it’s not like s/he’s a slacker. </p>
<p>Hopefully your AP scores and high SAT scores will be considered. You may want to call the admissions offices at your top choice schools and ask if the class ranking will automatically prevent you from being considered, and ask for special consideration due to the grade inflation at your school. The SAT and AP scores speak to your ability.</p>
<p>How can a college do its own ranking? The UCs, maybe, based on CA standards. (I dont know what the UCs do.) The best most can do is guesstimate. For a hs that does not rank, they can get a feel- nothing more. Eg, they “know” what puts a kid at the top of the pool at my kids’ former hs- because the adcoms “know” the school. Or, they know how hard it is to get top ranking at one of the best hs in the country. </p>
<p>And, who has time to go through 15-30,000 apps and do this? You think they’ll transcribe each class and assign a value to the grade? If so, I have never seen this “new” rank. I have, otoh, seen reader comments reflecting the rank the GC put down.</p>
<p>On another thread, his gpa at the end of junior year was 3.15, which he brought to 3.5 through online classes. He’s at a school with “serious” grade inflation. 25% of the kids have better than a 3.9. NOT a competitive hs where A’s are hard to come by. His stats are good, but many colleges place less emphasis, if any, on self-studied APs.</p>
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<p>UCs do not consider current rank at all, although they ask high schools to rank order UC admissions GPAs (calculated as specified by UC) for the purpose of setting the top 9% threshold for the following years’ classes for Eligibility in Local Context. Theoretically, if UC began to consider current class rank, it could ask for class ranks based on UC admissions GPA to avoid differences caused by different high school GPA and rank calculation methods (though non-California high schools might still balk at this).</p>
<p>However, it appears that most universities that use class rank just trust the high schools’ method of calculating class rank. For example, Texas public universities use whatever the high schools calculate, rather than specifying a particular GPA formula and weighting to be used to calculate class rank.</p>
<p>Private universities recruiting nationally are unlikely to have any practical ability to impose a class ranking scheme on high schools the way that state universities could theoretically impose one on in-state high schools.</p>
<p>The OP’s problem is that it appears that some colleges want to be able to say that 100% of their incoming class is in the top 50%, or even top 25% of the graduating class–and he isn’t. Either he needs to look at colleges that don’t do this, or he needs to convince the colleges that this doesn’t really apply to him. This is why he really needs the guidance counselor’s help.</p>
<p>OP, this is an interesting topic to me, as (a) I have a DS who is now in his second year at NYU, and (b) I serve on the school board, where two years ago we adopted a “no class rank” policy for our guidance department in preparing college applications submissions. The fact that our HS no longer gives a class rank has had no impact on the colleges where the students have applied and their acceptances to those schools. As a matter of fact, the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences shows that NYU does not require that class rank be reported as part of the application (see the admissions buttion at [College</a> Navigator - New York University](<a href=“College Navigator - New York University”>College Navigator - New York University) ). So perhaps this issue may be moot.</p>
<p>However, there are many factors in the acceptance process. As others have noted, you should look at all your criteria, including financial, as part of your college application and selection process. Work with your GC and get the help you need. </p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>