Excellent! In that case, I think they already have safeties. One more is a nice cushion I suppose, and probably wise, but I think both will get into one of their “Reach” schools.
3 Likes
If they can’t report rank, you don’t have a rank - so i would not self report it. If it can’t be validated, it doesn’t exist.
The school either ranks…or doesn’t rank. If they don’t share, then they don’t rank.
8 Likes
That’s good to know. I didn’t know that.
I guess another question for OP is the rigor of D’s and S’s respective course schedules. That gives some perspective, right?
If your schools don’t rank - how do you know your S and D are #7 and #3 respectively?
1 Like
While the school may not report rank, they may report decile. Some schools that don’t rank may also report if a student is the val or sal. You may want to check.
4 Likes
This is correct - the colleges will review the counselor report - which will rate rigor…as well as the schedule, grades, and the rest.
These aren’t items that are accepted from the student - yes, sometimes grades and test scores are self reported - but they are verified. In the case of rank, it cannot be verified. Hence, by reporting it, you’re in essence - fibbing - for lack of a better term. It may be true - but they cannot believe that - nor should they.
1 Like
The Common Application School Report that the counselor writes contains an implicit ranking to check.
https://commonapp.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#d0000000eEna/a/1L000000guQg/GnFtbzQMfhXi0S4IXIOgI1r2h28wqtbNX2aUHuRbd3k
(from Member Support )
Counselor is to rate academic achievement, personal qualities and character, and overall in various categories, such as “excellent (top 10%)”, “outstanding (top 5%)”, and “one of the top few encountered in my career” (which said “(top 1%)” in past year versions but does not say that now).
5 Likes
I knew the rank of 2 of my kids, due to county scholar/athlete awards. Two students were chosen from each high school, and thinks gpa/rank/ test score/college were announced at the awards dinner. In their cases, most of their friends were in the top 20, including salutatorian/valedictorian, and they’d all do the math and figure it out.
The schools rank but don’t report it. But they will tell the student where they rank. I am not sure how they address the Common App percentile question that goes above 10%? The question doesn’t just address GPA though.
Both my students will self report. It isn’t fibbing. It’s a fact and if the college doesn’t want to consider it b/c it isn’t verified then they can choose to ignore it.
3 Likes
Ok, I see. Thanks @Techno13.
I would not be too surprised if most counselors’ ratings, at least in the top three categories, for academic achievement correlated well to class rank, perhaps with some differences at the margins of each range for subjective factors versus class rank calculation methodology.
1 Like
This is a good place to point out that not all GCs fill out this section, or the curriculum rigor section of the counselor report. Once schools starting dropping the reporting of rank, some/(many?) of these schools stopped filling out these sections of the counselor report for the same reasons they dropped rank…they don’t want to telegraph relative standing of the students.
So, schools report a median weighted GPA, or mid 50% GPA on the school profile, and leave it to the colleges to do their thing. Many competitive and/or highly ranked high schools believe that telegraphing a student’s relative standing can be detrimental in admissions…so first we have seen maybe 70% of HSs stop ranking over the last 10 years or so, and that is being followed by counselors choosing not to complete some fields in their reports.
4 Likes
Obviously your kids have gray stats and have a chance any all of these schools. I guess my question is how do they know they don’t like any safeties when they haven’t visited any yet? Seems a bit like they are just deciding based on prestige. I assume at this point these are just very preliminary lists. Once you start doing visits, their wants and needs are probably going to change or become more defined. And then you can start looking for some safeties that would be good fits compared to what they’ve decided they want/don’t want in a school. Also, kids change a lot in a year. What they want now may not be what they want a year from now.
2 Likes
I’m not saying it’s fibbing. I’m saying it can be seen as such…simply because it cannot be verified.
Truth is, colleges are adept at farcing out all the details today as it seems like more and more schools do not provide rank. They’ve got it figured out - in other words.
I may be misinformed about what is and what isn’t in Naviance, but doesn’t it show the weighted GPAs of recent applicants from each high school and what GPAs were accepted / declined? Regardless, I would think that if the OP’s kids are coming from large competitive high schools with 400-600 members per class that Brown, Dartmouth, Emory, Vanderbilt, etc. have seen a bunch of GPAs from those high schools to give context to the grades and rigor of these two applicants, regardless of what the guidance counselors or transcripts relay. Of course, this is not class rank, per se, but it still provides a mechanism to make useful intraschool comparisons. Feel free to correct me if I’m off base.
2 Likes
Just reiterated and HAMMERING home what many here have said. These are perfectly fine lists for 2018 or 2019. Even 2020. Not now. We are in a new world, where next year our GC anticipates the amount of students applying to 20+ schools more than quadrupling. What does that mean? Well, high stats kids trickling down to what otherwise used to be safeties. Overwhelming admissions offices, and inflating the accepted student class stats simply because they’ll need to.
If $ is not that big of an issue, spend the $300 and have each pick two legitimate safety schools. Many have been mentioned here. Focus on their interests in terms of geography, academics, athletics, majors, etc. Go somewhere like niche and punch in their majors and you’ll find some schools that suprise you in top 20s for a discipline. No, it’s not exact or rocket science, but they NEED places you have a darn good idea they’re getting in.
The schools on your list are mostly, at best, a 25% chance in ED. They’ll then drop to single digits for RD. EA you’re looking under 30% for most. So while they’re very likely to get in somewhere due to math…they’ll be unlikely to get into each one individually. Next year is going to be full of many, many pressures and stress. Do not let “will I get into ANY college?” be one of them.
9 Likes
It shows whatever data the school counselors put into the system, which is limited to what students report wrt their applications and decisions. College AOs do NOT have access to a given HS’s Naviance (or Scoir or any of the other competitors). Not to mention many HSs don’t have any of these software tools.
Just to take my local HS (highly ranked large affluent public) as an example…it contains either wGPA or unwGPA (user chooses which) on the Y axis, and unsuperscored SAT/ACT scores (again, user choice) on the X axis. It also shows round of admission…but the data is aggregated for the last 6 years and not filterable by year. So, it’s less than helpful for parents and students. Students have to speak with their GCs to get more details.
AOs are supposed to know the HSs in their territories in detail, so they do understand the context of a student’s record. This is how some relatively strong high schools can send unhooked students in the 2nd quartile to top 20 schools, or students in the third quartile to Top 150 schools. AOs certainly call HS GCs too, if and when they need more context.
1 Like
I think we’re in a time where we can almost throw Naviance into the garbage from a previous state perspective. At best it is a dated data point providing some information, but the massive change in admission practices and processes over the last few years has rendered it borderline worthless for chance purposes.
7 Likes
I don’t think private elite schools get many apps from our high schools. Top students here want a top UC, Stanford, or one of the Claremonts. Not many students leave CA. I wouldn’t say they are top-competitive high schools. Though the top 10% at our schools is very competitive, the median student might not attend college. Our schools don’t even have Naviance. I’ve only heard of it here on CC. Wish I had access!
1 Like
Naviance/Scoir et al are not worthless if they have a complete/nearly complete data set and the student/parents can filter by one year at a time (which the softwares do allow, but the counseling dept has to enable that). Of course the hooked applicants, and now those who applied TO will always be confounding…unless one has their GC point out those cases. It is also difficult to get students to report all of their results at the end of senior year.