<p>Well I'm currently ranked 50 out of 270. After the first semester I'm hoping to be ranked in the 30's/40's. Is my class rank good though for Universities like Northeastern, Syracuse, and Boston University.</p>
<p>Top 20%? Yes, that won’t hold you back.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, roughly half of the last freshman class at BU and Northeastern were ranked below the top 10% of their HS class. I don’t have the stats for Syracuse but I doubt it is much different. Fewer than half of all applicants at BU and Northeastern, for that matter, even submitted class rank.</p>
<p>According to stats provided by USNews premium college edition, for Syracuse that is likely about 50% level class rank (meaning about 1/2 of those admitted have better and half worse). For NE, it is closer to the 35% level, meaning 65% are better, and for BU it is about the 75% level meaning 75% are better. Obviously going up to 30 out of 270 would be vast improvement</p>
<p>drusba – According to BU’s last Common Data Set 56% of freshmen were ranked in the top 25%. At Northeastern 81% (again according to CDS data posted on the college web site) of freshman were ranked in the top 25%. In the case of NE I can see 65% being better than the 81st percentile (the OP’s status), but there appears to be a significant difference in what USNWR and CDS is reporting about BU. </p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t think class rank should be a major issue if GPA, course rigor and test scores are in the top 50th percentile or better.</p>
<p>Sorry I mixed the two up, likely near top 65% for BU and only top 75% for NE. Nevertheless USNews shows 87% of applicants at BU are in top 25%, not only 56% of students so I do not know why the difference but that 56% sounds more like its top 10% level which US news has a figure close to 56%.</p>
<p>I think USNews got it wrong. At least I’d hope that the data being posted on BU’s website is more trustworthy than what is published in a popular magazine.</p>