<p>My school reports all students with a weighted 4.0+ as ranked #1 (i am one of those students) and reports no other rankings. I'm guessing, but somewhere between 5% and 15% of my class will report a rank of 1. Will this hurt my chances at selective universities, in which many candidates are ranked #1, unshared? Otherwise, with my stats, I would be considered a "qualified candidate" at most schools (not that I think this is any gurantee of being accepted at any given school).</p>
<p>Being val isn’t hugely relevant to admissions, even at top colleges. Students (and parents) get wound around the axel about ranking, but once you are above a certain level GPA-wise, colleges move on to the rest of the app, even the very top colleges. They are then looking at test scores, recommendations, ECs, and essays. Don’t worry about it AT ALL, it isn’t worth your time. </p>
<p>intparent is correct. It will not matter. What does matter is that you excelled as much as possible. If there are other ways you stand out, your guidance counselor and teachers can describe that.</p>
<p>@intparent Thanks for your help… I figured it probably wouldn’t matter much, but just curious if the school’s or my own quality and academic rigor would be questioned.</p>
<p>Not as long as your test scores and recommendations match up well…</p>
<p>@intparent @WasatchWriter - I disagree with the assertion that “once you are above a certain level GPA-wise, colleges move on to the rest of the app, even the very top colleges.” A good GPA isn’t sufficient. You must have a good GPA in rigorous courses. They’ll look at at your transcript, and GPA tells only part of the story.</p>
<p>@sherpa What did you think I meant when I wrote “What does matter is that you excelled as much as possible.”? If it was not clear, I’ll spell it out. I do not think a student is excelling as much as possible if he/she skips AP Chemistry to get an A in cooking. There’s nothing wrong with making your point; but there was no reason to drag anyone else into it.</p>
<p>I hope that what Intparent says is true…my daughter’s school only ranks in deciles so the best she can do is the “top decile” when in reality she is somewhere in the top 1, 2 or 3. Even though two of the schools she is applying to give significant merit $ according to rank (top 2%), the school guidance counselor refuses to acknowledge it. In the end, it could cost us $100K over four years. In schools where ranking is not a merit factor its less of a big deal to us but it reeks of the “everyone who works hard should get a trophy” school of thought.</p>
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That depends entirely on the school in question. When colleges were more open with their admissions data, you’d see this pretty clearly with some of the admit rates. The difference in admit rate between vals and sals at Penn in particular was very noticeable. Dartmouth has a rather large gap as well – vals make up 30% of incoming freshmen with a class rank, but sals make up only 10%. (That 40% of ranked students were #1 or #2 is in itself quite telling, IMO.) </p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that many schools reserve merit scholarships specifically for valedictorians and sometimes salutatorians. Very rarely do extracurricular activities provide automatic scholarships the way GPA/class rank and test scores do. </p>
<p>@WasatchWriter - re: “There’s nothing wrong with making your point; but there was no reason to drag anyone else into it.”</p>
<p>When you wrote “intparent is correct” I made the mistake of failing to read further. I didn’t mean to offend, or drag you into anything. In the future I’ll try to be more careful. Sorry.</p>
<p>Our kids’ school didn’t rank, but they did name val and sal graduates. So that was a way to prove out “top standing” if it was deemed very important by parents and/or students. In admissions, though, top colleges are really trying to find students who are intellectual and interesting. They are aching for these students – ticket punching with the most APs or no A-s isn’t the most attractive thing to them. My D2 was neither val nor sal (in fact, uw GPA was 3.7), and she got in everyplace she applied – including U of Chicago, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, and also several other schools with very good merit aid. She had better results than the sal or val of her class. I think parents and students worry WAY too much about class rank, and not nearly enough about following a creative, interesting path with their interests and ECsl. The schools have a GPA and test score bar to see if you can handle the work, but then it is all about what else you bring to the table.</p>
<p>@sherpa I’m probably just cranky today. We’re good.</p>
<p>i disagree with the assertion that gpa doesn’t matter past a certain point. That’s true for the sat, but for gpa you want to have as close to a 4.0 UW as is possible for many colleges. For example, a crimson survey showed that 54% of harvard students had a 4.0 (including URMs, athletes, and legacies …), I highly doubt that anywhere above 20% of the “qualified” applicant pool (with a 3.8+ gpa per say) had a 4.0, so clearly the higher the better. This is reflected in its average gpa being 3.94, well above 3.8. Princeton seems not to have as much emphasis on gpa, their admit rate for 4.0 is nearly the same as it is for 3.9-3.99 and even lower groups still have (comparatively) high admit rates (4.9% for 3.6-3.99). However, it should be noted that Princeton has an extremely strong legacy benefit, so these numbers may reflect favoring legacies. Stanford seems to use weighted gpa or weight on its own scale, as its site shows statistics for 4.0 and above and their dean talked about 76% of the early admittees having a 4.0 or above (for the record that statistic is 73% for the overall class). </p>
<p>For class rank, this shouldn’t hurt you really though, since it appears your gpa is near perfect or perfect unless there are some of those scholarships reserved for specific class ranks. </p>