<p>I go to a really small private school. It's competitive with heavy workload but has no recognition so colleges wouldn't know this. (I saw my school's profile and they don't mention this either)</p>
<p>Anyway, my senior class is of 31 people. My school doesn't rank but some colleges ask me to self estimate my rank. So only three top students are considered as in 10%? I am certainly not one of them.. but isn't this unfair? am I at disadvantage because I am not one of those top three students therefore my rank is out of 10%.</p>
<p>I’d consider it an ADVANTAGE to have a small class and no rank. You have to be top 3-5 kids (not percent) in a class of over 800 ish at many schools in our area to even be CONSIDERED for an Ivy school. They really do seem to ONLY take the top ranked. Even though the top…50 plus are all ABOVE 3.7. </p>
<p>Math is math. You can look at it either way. You say “am I at a disadvantage because I am not one of those top 3”…well, you’re also only COMPETING against 30 kids. So you SHOULD be in the top 3 if you want to be considered top 10%. I’m sure your school size is one of the reasons one usually reads “nearly all” students who were accepted, or “nearly all” students who got the scholarship…etc…are in the top 10%. Rank is a factor. But other things are too. It’s not black and white. If you’re #4 at your school…and 1-3 are tied at 4.0 and you have 3.997 with a 2350 SAT…No, it’s not going to matter that you’re outside top 10%. None of the stats exist in a vaccuum.</p>
<p>A private school that does not rank should make up a sheet of statistics for their graduating class, giving not only the GPA distribution, but average ACT/SAT scores and data on college matriculations. That sheet goes out with the counselor’s recommendation.
With this information, colleges that you apply to can figure out how tough the school is.</p>
<p>I agree with R124687. My nephew is an idiot but he attends a Christian school and his class is like 25 people. He’s ranked one even though he’s not smart at all. He scored a 1760 on his SAT and a 25 on his ACT. But he’s still number 1 and will graduate as his school’s valedictorian. His resume and college apps are saturated with the honors of being number 1. He applied to Stanford scea and was rejected, so schools know.</p>
<p>Colleges will have a school profile (trust me, they do) of the grading system, rank system, number of people, average work load, average GPA, and ALLL of that info on a sheet of paper while they look at your app. Since each high school is different, they depend on that school profile to evaluate you. You are not at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>but wait…you saw your own school’s profile that the colleges have? How did you do that? Haha I’ve never seen my own school’s profile…</p>
<p>It would be surprising to have a really competitive private school in the US that colleges don’t know about. The regional rep will know all the competitive schools in his region and what their standards are.</p>
You are mostly right, but there are instances where a competitive school doesn’t get as much recognition from a college because of geographic proximity. I’m pretty sure it happens with a lot of NE schools that aren’t at the very very top but are nevertheless quite competitive.</p>