The grade that I am graduating with is Super Competitive and smart, and my Guidance consoler said any other year i would be in the top 10. If they do consider class rank, how much weight to they put in it?
Counselor.
It depends on the school; from what I’ve seen, many schools either consider class rank (but not very important), or do not consider class rank at all. GPA and course rigor are usually looked at more.
However, if you are applying to Texas public universities, class rank is the primary high school record factor; GPA may not even be considered.
It depends. If you are an average student at an average school your rank will hurt you. If you are an average student at a school full of stars, then it won’t.
Anecdotally, at our better than average but not outstanding big public high school, the kids ranked 1-5 got into good state unis, often with $, but not into selective privates. Six through ten saw an Ivy and selective LAC admit. Number twenty got into Harvard! Rank mattered in that the best students were highly ranked, top 20-30 /700, but the exact place in the rank wasn’t so important. The lower ranked kids had more interesting stories or better ECs or offered some diversity. Harvard kid had an incredible story. Lower top kids had serious commitment to ECs which had hurt their GPAs and rank, but made them overall more compelling candidates.
YMMV
Yeah the problem is that I go to a small rural public school where I am 13th out of class of 65. (but GPA is 3.8 UW). Does this mean i will have a hard time getting into schools like NYU?
Look up the Common Data Set for your schools (google it), section C7, to see what each college uses for admission.