I guess my question is, will colleges overlook a rank, if they can see that my difficult college classes are not being weighted? AP’s are weighted at my school, but not dual-enrollment. I believe I am taking one of the heftiest course loads at my school, and am ranked 26/282. I have been taking an average of 20 credits each quarter, all really difficult math, science, and engineering classes and have maintained a 4.0 in my college classes. Will my unweighted GPA and rank hurt me for schools like MIT whose average GPA is like 4.13?
My school is a very rural public school, so being ranked only top 10% may not be looked well on at top-tier schools.
Schools that do automatic things based on rank probably care but really good schools that review apps holistically will realize that the vast majority of schools don’t weight DE classes. Those hard classes with a 4.0 should make you more appealing to schools like MIT that want to be sure students can succeed there. MIT is still a lottery type school in any circumstance though. Our schools (and many others) don’t rank at all so it’s really just states that all the schools rank like Texas where you may be at a slight disadvantage.
Rank is huge if you apply to Texas public universities. It is one of many indicators at most other schools that consider it (MIT considers it, but less than rigor, GPA, test scores, recommendations, essay, interview, extracurriculars, particular talent, and personal character, according to http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=186 ).