North Carolina Students Fight Class Ranking

<p>well i suppose they do but i see what you speak of</p>

<p>I think that rankings also dont really provide a good idea of what the other students are like.</p>

<p>Okay. I'm 38th out of 238. Not awesome. Not horrid.</p>

<p>But does the admissions committee know that in my senior class, we have a perfect scorer on the SAT as well as quite a few in the 2300's?</p>

<p>I dont know. Not all schools (or students at them) are created equally and class rankings only enforce that belief.</p>

<p>my school doesnt weigh, so Ib students end up ranking lower than regular students (which is why we dont release rank)</p>

<p>i think weighted GPA's with rank is a good thing. Im ranked 17 out of 200~ with a 3.898 gpa. Ive taken the second most amount of APs of anyone im aware of in my class and have a lower rank than people who havent taken a single AP. If there was weighting id easily be ranked 2nd.</p>

<p>ya but u see i have the same GPA as u and im ranked 40 out of 200, and ive probably taken more AP's</p>

<p>Ranking sux, it varies from place to place</p>

<p>i like how you assume this (with no basis) that you took more APs lol.</p>

<p>UNC gives 82% of its spots to people in NC, these guys are going to be just fine.</p>

<p>My very small private school in Texas ranks but doesn't weight grades and it's a big controversy. There are only 25 people in my class and probably 1/3 of them would prolly be top 10% at a public, but only 2 people can get in top 10% (i'm one of them thank god).</p>

<p>jeeze i got 25 people in my bio class</p>

<p>25 is normal for high school classes</p>

<p>We have 15 in my Bio class...</p>

<p>congratulatory marks</p>

<p>3/737 with a 4.4048 uw GPA in my sophomore class as of the end of the last semester (should be 5.5517 uw when GPA's are recalculated at the end of next week). I don't consider my high school very competitive, although most students do. The GPA I came to high school with would have put me in the top 10% of any of my high school's classes. Even though class rank is probably one of the most stressful parts of high school, I would never want to get rid of it. Of course I'm biased, but class ranking gives me something to work for and shows me how I compare to other students. You can still take the classes that you want and be in the upper echons in terms of class rank if you are willing to work for it. I'm only in one AP this year (Stats) even though I was encouraged to take two (Stats and Art History) because I wanted to take four math and science courses. Maybe I would have had a .005 higher GPA if I hadn't, but if I love what I'm doing, why complain?</p>

<p>People who complain about having 4.0's and ranking like 100/250 shouldn't really be complaining. I'm happy of your accomplishments of getting A's, but you're getting A's in regular classes (besides the fact that if almost half the class has perfect or better than perfect GPA's the school porbably isn't htat hard in the first place). People in AP courses do much more work than people in regular classes and they deserve to be rewarded with higher rankings. When I attended highschool, there was no way a student in regular classes could have been valedvictorian, because you only needed to get B's in AP classes to have the same GPA as someone in regular classes...and well you needed A's to stay in the AP classes. The public school in my town always had a kid in the regular classes as valedvictorian because the regular classes were easy, and AP and honors classes weren't weighted. That is not fair. As long as your school weights, ranking shouldn't be a problem. And if your school doesn't weight and ranks, the solution is to implement weighting, not get rid of ranking. </p>

<p>Being ranked helps distinguish you from the rest of your class when you're applying to schools. Its a good thing to see that you finished ranked 10/180. When multiple people apply to the same college from a school, there should be some way to differentiate between them if they all have A averages, not all A's are created equal. </p>

<p>Besides the fact, if you're taking all regular classes anyway, you're probably not looking at the most competitive colleges in the first place. If you have a GPA of 3.7 in regular classes (even if you're ranked just in the 50th percentile) you'll get into a tier 2 or 3 school without a problem. So I don't see what the problem is. </p>

<p>And finally, I don't mean to be ranting here...BUT NOT EVERY HIGHSCHOOL IS COMPETITIVE. I honestly think people on this website greatly exaggerate how competitive their highschools are. I see in practically every post about someones chances of admissions "oh i have only a 3.7 gpa but i go to a VERY competitive school." 95% of highschools are the same. The top 10% or 20% are competitive and the rest is people who either A) don't do any work or B) do work but arn't the absolute smartest. There are only a select few high schools that colleges deem as "competitive." These highschools are different for every college and usually these schools are feeders anyway. </p>

<p>Sorry for the rant, but I just needed to get that off my chest.</p>

<p>there are only 50 girls in my grade... our handbook says we dont rank (except val. & sal.) but they release "rank for specific college requirements" so i dont know exactly what that means. my rank probably isnt very good but im not that worried because the girls ranked like 40th or so last year still got into BC, ND, etc. i think im going to ask our principal if they actually tell colleges our rank or not. i know they dont tell us.</p>

<p>yeah several private schools in the enloe area refuse to rank...I understand why the students don't like the ranking system. It isn't just the slacker type that dislikes ranking. It's the really high-achieving kids who suffer. Kids who take easier classes and get A+++'s in them automatically get higher ranks. And it's really hard to weight in terms of ranking...everyone takes different classes so there's no comparison. The ranking system is antiquated--nowadays, there are diverse course offerings, and AP choices as well as IB's add to the mix. I have the same problem with GPA calculation...pure numbers don't mean anything. The number-crunching system promotes taking the most APs, the most honors courses...instead of classes that show genuine interests, not "OMG I have more APs than you do." I do think that colleges take into account the issues with class rank, so I wouldn't worry TOO much if your school ranks. Just do well in the areas you're interested in...remember, only 1 person can be valedictorian, and everyone has heard about the 1600 valedictorian getting rejected from MIT.
as an unrelated note, did you hear about the drug check at enloe recently? they certainly found some stuff :)</p>

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People who complain about having 4.0's and ranking like 100/250 shouldn't really be complaining. I'm happy of your accomplishments of getting A's, but you're getting A's in regular classes (besides the fact that if almost half the class has perfect or better than perfect GPA's the school porbably isn't htat hard in the first place).

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<p>jags, have you had particular experience with this? If not, then you shouldn't be talking. I was ranked around 100/350 with a 3.9 GPA taking all APs/Honors including Physics C and Calculus BC. So obviously I wasn't slacking. That is why I don't like ranking. Even though I worked really hard, I was past the top quarter because of the sheer competiveness. I think it helped even more that the school I am at now doesn't judge you based on your class rank (Thankfully!)</p>

<p>I was going to go to Enloe high school, but then I moved to Minnesota. Anyone here from Enloe. How is it there. Is it tough or easy.</p>

<p>Hopkinslax,</p>

<p>If you noticed, I said if you're school ranks and doesn't weight, I said it should be weighting. If you had a GPA of 3.9 and you were in all AP classes, and you're school doesn't weight...I guess I feel your pain; although I find it hard to believe that there were 99 kids with with straight A's. But if your school weighted and your GPA was 3.9, that meant you were probably getting B's in those classes. So, 100/350 isn't that bad for you now was it? Rank isn't supposed to judge how hard you work, it judges how well you do in comparison to everyone else.</p>

<p>i said before that if the people who are against class ranks made top five%, they wouldn't be complaining.</p>