DD is a high school junior in her spring semester. She is ranked #1 of ~350 and worked really hard to set up her classes from 9th grade to get and keep that rank. Her brother graduated from same school in 2013 so she had the benefit of his experience to help her set up classes and decide what to take. It’s tricky because there are many required courses like foreign languages, applied arts, fine arts, P.E., health and computer literacy that are not honors or APs that bring the gpa down. A student could take less classes and pull ahead of DD by dropping the foreign language, for example, and end up with a higher gpa. She planned it all out herself jumping through hoops just to be able to take the classes she needed. The counselor gave the kids their transcripts two weeks ago to sign up for senior classes and dd’s clearly said rank #1.
Today, I looked at the school’s academic profile online that gets sent to colleges and it says the school no longer ranks students! What?! How is this fair or even ethical? I think this new policy of not ranking students should have been phased in with the incoming new students and not changed midstream in the spring of dd’s junior year right as she is preparing to apply for colleges. DD has some schools on her list that have full rides IF you are ranked 1 or valedictorian and meet certain test/gpa thresholds. Valedictorian is voted on by a committee at her school, not the top academic student, so rank 1 means something entirely different. There was no announcement made. It just appeared suddenly as if it was done “secretly” behind closed doors! How does the school even benefit from not ranking students? It’s all computerized so is it really extra work? Who benefits?
Any suggestions? Of course, no one cares but the handful of kids that are highly ranked and I’m pretty sure no one knows yet because the transcripts showing ranking were just handed out. I sent an email to the “new” college counselor to clarify things and find out if they are going to phase it in but I know it is clearly written on the published school’s academic profile page so there isn’t much chance that it’s a mistake. What would you do?
Honestly, the class of 2017 has had so many changes that this just seems like another slap in the face. Between the new PSAT, the new SAT, the new ACT writing issue, the prior prior year FAFSA announcement in Sept, it’s been hard to keep up!
Colleges don’t care much about the exact rank, they primarily want to know about what percentile a student is in. Is it the top half, top quarter, top 10%, or top 2%? At many schools the top 4 or 5 students may be separated by a hundredth of a point. When it is that close, colleges do not care who is higher.
The school will probably still provide the college with enough information that they will know she was first. For example our school provides colleges with the high, low, mean, and median gpa plus the std. dev. If the college is given the high gpa and can see that it is the same as your daughter, they will know she had the highest.
Your superintendent and school board are probably to blame for the change! Our former superintendent used a letter from a deceased advisor to get this approved here. The letter of recommendation from the guidance counselor should mention your DD’s rank, at least in relative terms.
What scholarships are awarded only to valedictorians? I know such do exist, but there do not seem to be very many of them.
Is she looking at colleges that are very rank-focused (e.g. Texas public universities)?
Perhaps the school stopped publishing rank because of concern about gaming the rank at the expense of choosing the best academic selections (as you allude to in the first paragraph), or a tendency to cutthroatism?
I think this kind of jockeying to preserve the #1 spot is really counter-productive academically for the majority of students. The student who often ends up #1 may have developed the savvy and spent the time jockeying to make sure he or she got a schedule that allowed them to max their AP classes, get the teacher who gives out As easily, etc…but this isn’t really an appropriate academic objective for any school to be supporting. The difference between the student who is #1 and #5 is often ridiculously small. (In our magnet high school, 5 kids got 2400s on the SAT and many more had 4.0s. Should one of them have been #1? I don’t think so. Did the schools care? Not one whit as far as I can tell from the offers of admission.)
I realize this is disappointing to your daughter, and yes they ought to have phased it in. But there is no reason her GC can’t indicate that she was #1 in her class or ‘one of the top students’ in her year. Frankly, from an admissions perspective, it’s not as meaningful as a letter of rec from a teacher who says ‘this is the most outstanding student of my career’ or words to that effect. As for scholarships that go to the kid who as #1, I’m not aware of any: Most scholarship seemed to be based on several factors including letters of rec, demonstrated leadership, AND academic rigor. I’m don’t doubt that there is some scholarship out there that goes only the the #1, but with fewer and fewer schools ranking this way, I assume they too have figured out workarounds.
Your school is certainly not unusual in deciding to adopt this policy. It’s become increasingly common as a result of parental complaints when a kid doesn’t get the schedule they want and it’s going to impact their ability to retain their class rank. For most schools, the headache just wasn’t worth it - especially when the differences between the top students was so minuscule in any case.
The one (mostly) rank based scholarship that I have read about was the President’s Scholars program at CSU Long Beach, which used to require being either national scholars (National Merit) or valedictorian to be eligible to compete for it, but it seems that they have now changed it to invitation to apply based on unspecified criteria (of course, additional things are needed, namely essays and recommendations, which are not normally needed for applying for admission there). The historical information indicates that 87% of the past scholars were valedictorians, versus 13% national scholars.
i think schools are changing just because of this gaming of the system, the careful planning of each elective, the not taking foreign languages or ceramics because they are not honors. It’s ridiculous. In my daughters’ class, the Val had a 4.61 and the Sal a 4.60. The Val was a laid back guy who had a few honors cords around his neck and was heading to UF. The Sal had so many cords and medals around her neck she clanked as she went on stage, was ultra competitive, and still fell 0.01 points short.
Why should it be gradually introduced? Did your daughter just take a class for the rank, or for the education? Why can she not be voted Val if she deserves it? Why is it more important for a class of 2017 student to be ranked than for a 2018 or 2019?
In my own graduating class, there was a nice girl who had been #1 for all three years (only a 10-12 school). There were no weighted courses, no extra credit for honors. Sometimes we even got B’s and lived to tell about it. Anyway, as we were preparing for graduation, one of the juniors decided to graduate early and she jumped right into that number one spot! Sometimes life just really isn’t fair.
Thank you all for your replies. It helps me get over my anger just reading all the thoughtful answers. The other schools in our district still rank so I’m not sure who or how the change was suddenly made. Thanks, too, for understanding why DD would be upset this late in the game.
Yes, it should have been phased in and yes, it takes a lot of work to plan to basically “game” the system by picking the most academically challenging classes and a having full load. Her gpa may only be 1 point more than the #2 ranked student but she worked darn hard for that one point! She had to beg for classes she wanted and even ended up taking her foreign language online because it was scheduled for the same time as AP Physics. It was hard to work out her schedule and sometimes she would have to wait weeks to see if she could get in an AP class but she was determined to go the distance. She should be rewarded for her efforts over some other student who didn’t dig in so call it jockeying but I called it determination and perseverance. Other kids got to sleep an hour later, too, but she starts class at 6:40 am!
If we knew back in 9th grade that rank wouldn’t matter, I wonder if dd would have taken different classes like art or drama so I feel bad that she missed out on those kind of things striving to be the top student because we don’t have money for college. She knew all along that she had to be in a position to get big money or get accepted into a meets full need college. Yes, ucbalumnus, we had the CSULB on the list as her safety school and didn’t realize that it had just changed so I guess that is some consolation?
She might make National Merit (so hard to tell this year?) and she does have some teachers that I think will say great things in their rec letters, (maybe even “best” in career) and good test scores as well as some great ecs with leadership postions so hopefully she will get in somewhere.
Thank you again for all of your replies and mostly for your understanding and sympathy! I guess we have to just let this go but I do think it was most unfair and unethical to change the game at almost the very end. Thank you for letting me vent.
Twoinanddone, I didn’t see your post when I wrote my answer. “Did your daughter just take a class for the rank, or for the education?” YES absolutely, my daughter took classes JUST for the rank and grades because we have no money for college and she has to be the most competitive that she can be to have a chance to go to college. She did not have the luxury of taking art and drama and photography or anything else that might bring down her gpa. She had to take every AP and she had to get As to have a shot at getting into a college that meets full need or gives big scholarship money.
Maybe the Sal in your daughter’s class was in the same financial position as my kid. Don’t you know families like us? We can’t even afford the state school unless she is awarded scholarship money but we miss the cutoff for Pell. A full tuition scholarship isn’t enough because we can’t afford room and board. DD is very quiet and no one would say she was competitive but she knows what she has to do if she wants a chance at college.
Luckily, she enjoyed the challenge and found out that she was pretty good at most things but she knows she wants to go to college so she tried her hardest. When we talked about safety schools, she found CSULB and was thrilled not to have community college as her back up. Back to the drawing board, too bad National Merit doesn’t notify the kids early in the summer so she could maybe plan for some other guaranteed scholarships.
“Why should it be gradually introduced?” I think that changing the rules at the end of the game is unfair and that some notice should have been given. If she started 9th grade knowing she wouldn’t be ranked, it would have changed what classes she took knowing that she didn’t have to maintain her #1 rank anymore. She certainly wouldn’t have gone to school so early! Three years of starting class at 6:40 is pretty insane. There is a lot of leeway when all of the sudden, you are “only” top 10% instead of #1.
“Why can she not be voted Val if she deserves it?” No one knows how Val is picked, it’s secret. Maybe she will get it but the announcement isn’t made until late spring of senior year so there is no benefit for college applications. I think that is another poor decision at her school. That is just one more reason being able to write rank #1 was more important than Val or Sal.
Thank you for your reply. I hope to be “two in and done” in the near future!
If your daughter has a high GPA and test scores she could be competitive for many full ride scholarships regardless of her rank. There are more full rides based on these two criteria and/or holistic evaluation than those based on rank. Your daughter is a junior and has time to regroup and redo her list.
There are many aspects of high school ranking that are unfair. At my daughter’s high school students move in and out frequently. Further when she started high school there was a policy that students could not take AP classes until junior year, and only AP classes where the student actually took the AP exam were weighted. However, students moved in between sophomore and junior year having taken AP classes and exams at other high schools before junior year so enter the pool with weighted grades. These kids ended up ranked higher than the kids who had been at the high school all along because they transferred in with weighted GPAs. Was this fair to the students who had been at the high school all along? I don’t know, because I don’t know how I would feel as the parent of one of the students who moved in with weighted grades. In the end, my daughter was bumped to third in the class, and she was the only one of the top ten or so that had an unweighted 4.0. Was it fair or not? I don’t know. Didn it prevent her from taking classes and doing things that she wanted to do rather than jockeying for that number one spot? No. Did she end up with an excellent schoarship? Yes.
You will be able to move on from this, it is what it is. There are automatic full rides that your daugther will probably qualify for, and she can then get a college education that you can afford.
GMTplus7, I absolutely agree=“This is why college admissions is broken.” The days are long gone when a kid could work their way through college or have some other way to thrive and survive without a college degree. When did state schools become so expensive? I can’t remember but it seems as though 10 years ago, we could have paid for that.
To be fair, she really does love her classes and her teachers. She is no doubt academically talented so she would probably be in those classes anyway but there was room for more if she didn’t have to watch every point. My dd is an amazing artist and musician. She can hear a song and play it by ear on the piano and guitar. She loves painting and drawing. I know she would have loved to take art or music in school. She wanted to run for student govt but she couldn’t because it was a class and she would have to take the grade hit AND give up an AP or honors class. She looks for her “real” education extras outside of school. She signs herself up for competitive summer programs that will give her financial aid and takes the hardest things possible at those programs just to be challenged. She wanted to travel so she found a way to go to Europe even though we, her parents, have never been and she spent the entire 7 weeks studying the history and art of the different countries by planning out the route to every museum. Even with 5 AP classes, she tutors an ADHD kid every week, Monday thru Thursday, when she gets out of school and I’ve never seen anyone so patient and kind. She works restoring the wetlands on the weekends and does ALL her own cooking because she decided it’s bad for the earth to eat meat and has been a vegetarian since 2nd grade. She is in school clubs like Mock Trial that gives her the “drama” she misses by not being able to take those classes and has leadership rolls in most of those clubs. Those are the things she does for fun, not college apps. Most of all, she takes care of me and my mother because we are sick.
To be fair, we really were not the worst parents. I’ve said it here before but we had 529s for both our kids since they were babies but the money was mismanaged and we lost almost all of it. There is still a class action lawsuit but it will never be settled in time for either of my kids. Then I got cancer and couldn’t work. My dad also had a 529 with a good amount for both kids but he died and his second wife took all the money and spent it. Never did I think we would be in this position.
I guess I am really lucky that my kids DO have a shot at college because they are motivated and talented. It will all work out.
She sounds like an excellent candidate for a full ride somewhere. You should be very proud and you sound like you are. Hope that your health status improves.
I’m not sure what kind of advice anyone can give you.
Number 1, number 2, number 3-- in many schools, those places are interchangeable from day to day as kids take tests and quizzes and hand in projects. So sending in a Junior transcript today, in March, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re naming kid who will be #1 at the end of the game 14 months from now.
There was a change in policy. Had they made that change 3 years ago, when your daughter was an incoming freshman, how would anything have been any different for her?
I am sorry for the way things worked out with your finances, but rest assured that despite the lack of ranking, your daughter will be getting a lot of college money as long as you both do your research. My daughter graduated #1 out of 400 but only took the classes that she liked. She did not take any of the social studies AP classes because those were not of interest to her until senior year when she realized she may like them but it was too late to take them- she took honors instead. Our HS is also getting rid of class rank because they want kids to take what they enjoy and to learn from them. They do not want this to turn into a competition where students plan out their courses just to be #1. It takes the emphasis off of learning and exploring and turns kids into people who are only interested in “winning the prize.” That is not a way to educate our children.
Your daughter’s school should still have a way of identifying top students when they send out the HS profile. In addition, the GC may be able to identify where she is even though your school does not officially rank. Most HS’s in this country do not rank- that seems to be the new trend. Our HS took great lengths to explain to us how districts similar to ours (academically, economically, etc) stopped ranking and their students did quite well in the college process. Colleges still know how to identify top students despite the lack of a “#1” ranking. Your daughter sounds like an amazing young lady and if she applies to the right schools, she should get merit aid.
She sounds like an amazing kid. I also think she will get a full ride some where, whether she is #1 or #10. My kid was a Sal at her school and the school didn’t rank. They only named Val and Sal. I don’t know if the school sent such information to her colleges, but she put it on her resume. On the GC recommendation letter, she was placed at top 1% academically. I think that’s what adcoms cared about, not necessary the exact ranking.
One little point to add: Might it still be possible for your daughter to change her course choices for next year? If there’s something she has been wanting to take but has avoided because it isn’t weighted, now would be the chance because slight differences in GPA and class rank no longer matter.
To the OP: I’m sorry this happened to your daughter. I agree that it should have been done in stages. I was pretty surprised to find out that the school my daughter graduated from also did not rank, nor did they acknowledge NHS and several other things I thought would have benefited her in the college process. She chose this school over our regional high school and it was a sacrifice in a lot of ways, travel time alone (45-1 hour each way) was an issue. Situation is different I know in that I should have done my homework but in the end its the same.
There was one school my D applied to that had a very large scholarship for anyone ranked #1 but the best her high school would do is say she was in the top 5% and that just wasn’t enough (she was either #1 or #2). However, there are many, many schools that will give your daughter enough money so she can attend. Now is the time to put together a list of those schools. Good luck.
At our school numbers 1 through 10 or 12 were all very bright kids, good tests, etc. (Our school only ranks 1 and 2 though-- the rest are in a decile). #1 gamed the system, preserved his rank, etc. etc. He was locked out of his top schools, presumably because the schools saw that he took the “easy” APs, or not nearly as many (our school gives light weight to APs compared to other schools I’ve heard of), etc. etc. Others in the top 10 had lower weighted GPAs but there were lots of top school, multi-elite admissions. That #1 spot is HIGHLY overrated.