<p>Yeah I’m betting it was the clas rank thing, along with all the other top schools that rejected me… 
Unfortunately my school weights GPA to calculate class rank in a VERY strange way, and what it comes down to is that if I’d gone to another high school where only, say, AP Classes are weighted, I’d easily clear the top 10% and probably better.
My school sucks.
Oh well… Rice loves me 
Good bye NYC, hello Texas!</p>
<p>I know – my son was ranked about 11% at his high school (just below the top 10%) – but they didn’t weight grades, so he was done in by B’s & C’s in PE, while kids who had never taken a single honors or AP class ranked well above him. My son had straight A’s in all academic subjects all 4 years of high school, but an unweighted GPA a few points shy of 4.0. I think his weighted GPA was more like 4.3. </p>
<p>There are also kids in schools where weighting is done for raking who are done in because of their participation in classes like Band or taking art classes, leaving them at a competitive disadvantage with the kids who manage to fill their schedule with weighted honors courses – so there’s really no one system that is fair to everyone.</p>
<p>Rice is a wonderful school - I’m betting that in a few months you will be very happy with your choice and wonder why you ever even wanted to go anywhere else. :)</p>