<p>My school used unweighted grades only, and even ranked special ed students with traditional and honors students. I feel colleges take a harder look at grades and coursework of each student than class rank. As far as usnews rankings, let's remember usnews is in the business of selling rankings. Take their rankings with a large grain of salt. It has been my experience that the real world rarely looks at their rankings before they hire.</p>
<p>This scholarship at Harvey Mudd is a huge factor in evaluating the college's cost, because the majority of students receive it. If an affected student from your school went to Mudd, they would lose out on $40,000.
[quote]
Harvey S. Mudd Merit Award
All freshman applicants are eligible for this award, including international applicants. Harvey S. Mudd Scholars receive a $40,000 Scholarship distributed annually in the amount of $10,000 per year. The award will be automatically renewed at the close of the second year. In order to renew the award in subsequent years, recipients must have a cumulative grade point average of 2.75 by the conclusion of each spring term. Renewal of the award is contingent upon eight consecutive semesters of enrollment, with the exception of study abroad or an approved leave of absence. </p>
<p>We look for academic achievement, character, and leadership potential. All first-year students choosing to enroll at HMC and who meet the qualifications below will receive the Harvey S. Mudd Merit Award:</p>
<pre><code>* SAT Critical Reading Score: 700 or above
* SAT Writing Score: 700 or above
* SAT Math Score: 750 or above SAT
* Math 2 Subject Exam Score: 750 or above
* High school rank within the top 10% *
</code></pre>
<p>OR</p>
<pre><code>* ACT English Score: 32 or above
* ACT Reading Score: 32 or above
* ACT Math Score: 34 or above
* SAT Math 2 Subject Exam Score: 750 or above
* High school rank within the top 10%*
</code></pre>
<p>*If your secondary school doesn’t provide rank or decile information, it’s your responsibility to contact your counselor or Registrar to request documentation to verify that you’re within the top 10 percent of your graduating class. Usually this comes in the form of a brief letter or email from the counselor to the Office of Admission. Being in the top 10 percent of your class is a rigid requirement for this award.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>suggest you search cc for Fairfax, VA. They just adopted a weighted gpa based on parental pressure.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great responses.</p>
<p>lockn: The HMC scholarship is exactly what has egged me on. My son will likely go there and he is in the top 11% because of the unweigted system (he meets all other criteria). We are trying to see if a letter from the counselor saying that if it were weighted he would be in the top 10% would be sufficient, but are waiting to find out. If he went to a neigboring school district that weights for rank, he would easily qualify. Thus this policy will likely cost us $40k. We've cited this example to the board and are trying to find others like it.</p>
<p>siserune: I respectfully disagree that it's a zero sum gain with respect to college admissions. Those kids in the top 10% with no APs are not going to get into the type of schools that generally care if you are in the top 10% as those schools want students who challenge themselves. So I don't think those kids get a big benefit. Our suggestion, by the way, it to have both weighted and unweighted so the kids can choose. That way those who have not take a lot of AP classes but have a 4.0 can just report their unweighted rank. This disadvantages no one. </p>
<p>Miami DAP: Yes, schoools do consider school/ number of AP's and overall rigor of classes of each candidate and kids with schedules that are apparently on a lighter side will not have a chance. However, class rank can also be a factor. </p>
<p>drb and momtn: Thanks for the info. THis is exatly what I am looking for. Hopefully our GC is also willing to help us. She did a little before and may need to do a bit more. We'll see if she steps up.</p>
<p>Younghoss: Re: US News. I don't care a bit about their rankings. My point is that the colleges themselves absolutely do care - and dearly - and admitting kids who are not in the top 10% hurts their rankings (which matters to them), so some may be more reluctant to admit kids who are not in the top 10%. </p>
<p>Keep the examples coming. I have two more days before I submit my info.</p>
<p>WAMOMof 2- I wish I could remember where I found those formulae. I think they were available at the web sites of the particular schools. Sorry! I'll let you know if anything surfaces in this brain of mine.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I respectfully disagree that it's a zero sum gain with respect to college admissions. Those kids in the top 10% with no APs are not going to get into the type of schools that generally care if you are in the top 10% as those schools want students who challenge themselves. So I don't think those kids get a big benefit.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Having a few students reap moderate-to-large benefits and a larger number see small-to-moderate losses is still a zero sum competition. The individual gains and losses are more visible at the high end (and the boundary of the high end, as you mention), so it is easier to argue to a school board that particular types of students are specifically disadvantaged. But if another 40 percent of the students would suffer some diffuse lowering of their class ranks and consequent reduction in the value of their high school credentials, that is also a loss that should be taken into account. Universities and scholarships far below the top range of selectivity also ask for class rank and use it in their selection, so people other than the AP takers are affected. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Our suggestion, by the way, it to have both weighted and unweighted so the kids can choose. That way those who have not take a lot of AP classes but have a 4.0 can just report their unweighted rank. This disadvantages no one.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The only way to avoid disadvantaging some students is to run a scam (or enable and encourage students to do so).</p>
<p>A procedure that fudges 14 percent of students into the top 10 percent is not class rank. The zero-sum nature of class rank, where one student moving up means others moving down, is precisely why universities and scholarships are interested in rank information. If the school system is not interested in artificially creating rigid rank distinctions between students, that is a principled position that many schools have adopted. But if the school accepts its role as a producer of rankings, the only way to "let students choose" without penalty is to enable them to report one rank with the implication that the other doesn't exist. That would be a scam.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is hard to imagine a school naming a valedictorian who took no AP classes and got all A's, considering him to be ranked higher than a National AP scholar with one B in BC calculus. Hard to imagine this is what the local community would want.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>At our HS, which does not weight, they did precisely this several years ago. In fact the pseudo-val had never taken a single HONORS course, much less an AP.</p>
<p>BTW, the "top ten" to which I referred earlier was not a "top 10%" ranking. It seems to be a local custom for all HSs to name the "top ten" students in the graduating class. A bio and picture is printed in the local newspaper. At our HS, it generally includes a few of the really top students and a bunch of kids who have taken a much easier schedule. Last year, when I congratulated a friend whose D was on the list, she startled me by replying, "That's a crock of $#*%!" Her elder D, a very strong student who did take all the hard courses, was NOT in the "top 10," so she had perspective on it.</p>
<p>It is possible that a someone could take no honors/AP and be val, but I think that's very unusual. The only benefit to this would be at graduation, because the colleges would not be impressed and this would likely ruin chances for admission to any selective schools. D's school weights AP only, but the stronger students almost always take the honors classes over the regular if the option exists. Also, the top students tend to take a lot of AP classes.</p>
<p>University of Miami (Fl) also uses class rank when they award their scholarships.</p>
<p>FallGirl: I think Honors and Aps are overrated. My D was admitted to Top 20 LAC and Ivy waitlist with no AP or Honors courses and HS offered plenty of both. Her school does weight courses but she was top 10% anyway.</p>
<p>FallGirl, you might imagine that is true. But at our HS, before weighting commenced, there were valedictorians who had taken very few APs, who had made their choices specifically to maintain their val status. That choice may not have been to their long term benefit, but we are talking about adolescents here, who are actually playing the game according to the rules.</p>
<p>I guess it's different in other places. D is in the top 10 (with many honors/AP) and I know almost all of the other students ranked in the top of her class and they are/have been in her classes and we know that they take challenging classes. The one person in the top 10 who takes a "weak" senior schedule ( although previously took a lot of honors/AP) was not admitted to any selective schools. The school does tell students that strength of schedule matters to colleges and they seem to follow this.</p>
<p>Let me add. D's school announces and puts out a press release listing the top 10 along with their respective GPA's at graduation. I have looked at these for at least the last 3 years and the GPA's these students have are mathematically impossible to obtain in our school district without the extra weighting given for AP classes(in fact these GPA's are so high these students must be taking several AP's). Another thing, in D's school the students are encouraged (some people refer to this as "pushed") to take honors and AP classes. In fact the school wants every student to take at least one AP. I believe that a student might get the top grades w/out honors and AP, but it wouldn't happen in D's school.</p>
<p>FallGirl, that is sort of the point. The students at your D's school are receiving weighted grades, so it follows that the students with the highest GPAs will have, most likely, taken the courses for which the grades are weighted.</p>
<p>It is in schools where grades are not weighted that the 4.0 student is the top ranked student and may not have taken many AP courses.</p>
<p>S attended a competitive admission, all honors (and AP), high school that did not rank or weight GPA. I feel it did hurt him in receiving merit scholarships and particularly an admission to a large university's honors program which considered weighted GPA for admission with the average being over 4.0. (From what I remember, I do not believe that anyone in S's graduating class had a 4.0)</p>
<p>I know that the thread is about unweighted GPA's. I posted because I saw a lot of comments about the students at the top being the ones who take only easy classes and I wanted to speak out about that. Even with the grade weighting in our school, this accusation is lobbed at some of the top students in our school every year ( by people who don't look at the GPA's and realize what I have...). So I guess I went off on a tangent, but I wanted to clarify. Also our school only weights AP ( not honors) , but the students overwhelmingly take the honors over the regular classes.</p>
<p>At some high schools, there are scholarships to a particular university, or admission preferences at specific universities, based on class rank. For instance, Duke might give a full scholarship to the valedictorian of some nearby high school, or Stanford might have a tradition of admitting the top ten students at Henry Gunn. (Those are invented examples, but they are based on real examples of universities having special relationships with particular high schools.)</p>
<p>In such cases there is a strong incentive for some students to "game" the unweighted GPA rankings by taking easy courses, and it does happen that mediocre students succeed in winning that game and getting the associated prize.</p>
<p>HS where I work does not compute GPA and does not rank. No problem with acceptance to any top schools.</p>
<p>We are in the midst of transferring our S, who will be a senior in the fall, from a private college-prep school with no ranking and supposedly all classes are “honors” level, to a public HS with full ranking and weighting, with levels of classes from normal to X (honors) to AP/IB. Old school uses a 4.0 scale; new school SAYS they use a 4.0 scale, but in reality uses a 5.0+ scale by the time weighting is applied. New school has data indicating the average GPA of their students accepted to various colleges; as an example, the average GPA of students admitted to Stanford is 5.2; Harvard 5.2; Emory 4.9, the state university 3.8. This is very scary to us, parents of a good, bright, creative kid who is nevertheless a regular B+ student.</p>
<p>The new school won’t give us an idea of what his weighted GPA and class rank might be until they get the final grade report for the school year sometime in June; however, we are concerned that not all his classes will get the weighting they deserve, which means that he will be worse off for college admissions and scholarships in the new school than in the old school. This is an urgent matter because if we don’t notify the old school of his withdrawal before the last day of the current school year, we will owe next year’s tuition to the old school. And it’s EXPENSIVE–that’s why the transfer. The academic dean at the old school is dodging our phone calls.</p>
<p>I never thought I would be the kind of parent who cares about this stuff (we are pretty laid back as a rule).</p>
<p>I understand the points of those, above, who say that the no-weight/no-rank proposition does not put students at any disadvantage.</p>
<p>The problem comes in when we are dealing with not-well-known HS that DOES rank but does not weight.</p>