<p>Report cards today...4.0 unweighted. However, rank 19. My electives in 9th and tenth are really hurting me by not being honors. How bad is this? What if I get out of the top 20? I can be better than this, it makes me mad. I only get A's, and now I'm not even top 10. By the way, class size of 606.</p>
<p>Chill. You’re well within in the top 5% (top 30) of your class.</p>
<p>that happened to me, but I just took alot of AP online courses from a high school to balance everything… now I have 5 credits more than needed to graduate already, but my rank went up</p>
<p>Again, top 5% AND a 4.0 UW –> you’re completely fine.</p>
<p>You’re fine if you’re in the top 10%. Top 5% is even better.</p>
<p>Even if the valedictorian’s GPA is somewhat higher than mine?</p>
<p>I think you’re fine. Your unweighted GPA is great. If your rank is different only because of electives, and you’re choosing things you like/enjoy/are passionate about, you should keep doing that. It’s not like you aren’t challenging yourself with a rigorous classes elsewhere.</p>
<p>Okay…just gotta calm myself. I’ll refer back to this thread when I start freaking out again, and just read it over.</p>
<p>I understand, and I’m not sure I agree with others. I think top 10% isn’t worth much at all (in a big school). I think top 5% is iffy, depending on size of school and the rest. The school itself makes a difference. If it’s an “easy” school…I’m guessing top colleges look for the very top kids. At a difficult private prep school, one might get a “pass” for being “only” in the top 20 ish kids. </p>
<p>My D is at a very large, decent, public school. No one but the top 1-5 kids (out of 700) get into Ivies. The kids with lower GPAs but stellare SATs go elsewhere. And, by “lower” I mean the 4.0 plus weight = 5.1 are “top” students…about 10 of them. Kids all the way down to 60th are still an A- (3.7). But they don’t pull from those kids, even with 2300+ SATs. What about your state. I noticed Yale took 7 kids from all of Indiana (20 something from MI, 20 something from OH). So that might make a difference too…how they feel about your education system, your school, etc. Around here…it seems you’ve gotta be numbers 1,2,3,4,5. Why wouldn’t they? With the number of high schools and the number of available seats? They don’t have to dip too low. </p>
<p>I KNOW, I KNOW sometimes it happens. But there is a reason for it. </p>
<p>My own D has a lot of unweighted classes because she’s very interested in the arts…but, at academically competitive schools…you lose a LOT of spots. And I do think it hurts. BUT…she’s not willing to give up those classes.</p>
<p>my senior class size expanded! yeah!</p>
<p>harvardlite…hahahaha! THAT is good news. My D goes to school with a large component of low income students and dropped 100 students from 11th to 12th grade! What the heck? You can imagine that hurt EVERYONE’s rank. It was a shocker.</p>
<p>Wow, that is amazing. You didn’t take honors electives as a first or second year and that’s holding you back? That’s hilarious. </p>
<p>Ranking can be so dumb.</p>
<p>Well, my school bases it on purely weighted GPA. Being an uninformed freshmen, I had no idea.</p>
<p>At my D’s school(s)…kids take APs starting in 9th. FORGET it if you’re not in all honors right from the start. And many take their unweighted courses (PE, technical, speech, health) online or in summer school…to leave more slots open for AP/honors/weighted classes. It’s quite competitive at the top. Almost everyone has at least one non-weighted class though, in the arts, so as to fulfill either their IB requirements or show well roundedness. But it drags you down, to be sure.</p>
<p>Is it a public school?</p>
<p>I think college consider rank in different tiers. 1, 2, top 5%, top 10%, top 25%, top 50%, and everyone else. So being rank 5 or 20 makes not much of a difference in the long run. The only reason I worry is because I attend a large public. I guess Princeton doesn’t know specifics of the school, though.</p>
<p>Princeton should (will?) know specifics of your school. With every application your GC should include a prospectus. It details everything about how the school grades, adds weight, ranks, tells how much rigor is offered, so they can tell if you took the hardest courses, sometimes tells what grades most kids get…like top 5% above 3.85. Colleges can tell a LOT about your school by the prospectus (if done well). Of course they’ve also been doing this a long time, if you’re at a large public I’m sure the regional admissions rep is probably familiar with it. And they track results/successes from schools. If they know nothing at all about your school, and can’t find any way to compare you within it, or it to other schools…hard to say. Ivies only come calling to the top handful (5 ish, not 5%) of kids at my D’s large public. BUT…that’s comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>What you just said makes me so frustrated. My school ranks completely on weight. When I was in ninth and tenth, no one told me how some electives count for extra weight. Most people in my grade would agree that I am the smartest, and you’re telling me I won’t able to get in just because I took a few classes not marked with a “*Quality Point”. This stinks. I wish I had an older sibling that could have told me this stuff in middle school so I could prepare for it.</p>
<p>Also, you said they come for the top 5-ish. What if the top 5 are bad with extracurriculars, and a bunch in the 30-40 ish rank range have excellent everything, and almost-perfect academics? No one gets accepted?</p>
<p>Will being a legacy help repair this at all?</p>
<p>This concerns me as well, except for Columbia instead. I think it will hurt you, but you can definitely still get in. I would be so happy if I had a legacy.</p>
<p>I understand your frustration, but don’t go around thinking you’re the “smartest”—not even saying you think that, but I’m just warning you. Anyway, it really doesn’t sound like this will be an issue.</p>