Our S18’s high school has eliminated class rank. They migrated from having class rank to optional reporting, to eliminating it all together
We heard about this at freshman orientation and I hated the idea. My son was the 8th grade valedictorian and I thought they were robing him of a chance to compete for similar honors in HS. Afraid the teenagers couldn’t handle a little competition? Wake up - life is competition.
He’s a junior now and about to select Senior year classes. I have to admit I was so wrong. No class rank to think about meant being able to take the classes that made him happiest. No need for 6 APs - try a little competitive speech and drama and a song writing class. No need to care what other kids schedules look like. No conflicts working in advanced study groups to help everyone score the max. No rooting against other kids.
His academics have still been still stellar. Lots of APs and good numbers. And so many friends he would not have made if he couldn’t feel free to fit some artistic classes into his schedule
How would removing class rank work at your high school? Would there be a revolt?
Many schools have eliminate class rank. That’s not a problem for colleges. They can still infer class rank using the HS Profile which gives grade ranges.
Our high school does not do class rank or valedictorians as it drove some behaviors that were not in the best interest of the kids involved. Instead, they recognize the top 5 percent and top 10 percent.
I really wish my kid’s school would do this. So many kids game the system, like taking easy classes at the local community college that gets weighted as an AP course and thus inflating the GPA. AND, the problem is that only some kids are “in the know” about this. It makes me crazy and we have refused to play that game. For my older D it worked out just fine, and I imagine it will for my younger one as well.
Seems like the main users of class rank are Texas public universities. But then a high school that does not give clas rank in general could, for students applying to Texas public universities, indicate whether the student is in the top 7%, 10%, 25% or whatever relevant threshold is used for the university applied to.
Our school had no class rank. They asked all the kids to take risks and challenge themselves and recognized that that wouldn’t look the same for everyone. And the kids get into great schools just the same.
I go to private school and we have no ranking whatsoever- no percentiles or anything either. Internally, they have ranking data and my college counselor has told me my rank, but he explained that ranking pretty much hurts everyone except the top ten or so kids. Applying to college as one of the top kids in your class is obviously a boost, but, because its a pretty rigorous high school, there are a lot of kids in the middle of my class who are super smart but are ranked like 30th out of 60.
That being said, competition will always exist with or without ranking. One kid in my grade tried to make an estimated ranking system by approximating everything / or asking kids their specific GPAs, and it’s amazing how some kids will still try to actively hurt other kids academically even though there isn’t ranking. I also wonder if my school hurts its college prospects by not ranking; I have a feeling our top students would definitely do better if we published class rank.
My children’s private school has never ranked, as far as I know, for the reasons @JerseyParents discussed. I don’t believe any of the NYC private schools do, but I might be mistaken.
It hasn’t seemed to hurt them in the college process a bit.
Our high school said they don’t do rank when D first started there. Which, for them, means they don’t put it on your transcript. But ask your counselor, and a few clicks of a mouse later, you’ll have your precise rank, which apparently is put on the counselor’s letter to colleges. They have a crazy system in which some classes are weighted to 4.5 and others to 5. My son is in a dual enrollment engineering class being taught at the high school via video with a state university (not a branch one, not a community college but the actual main campus) and the class isn’t weighted at all. SMH on this one. I wish they’d either fully reinstate it or just do away with it all together.
We don’t have class rank (or at least it’s not published), and I love it. I cannot imagine the extra stress we’d all be under, and the sense of teamwork and community that exists in my class is awesome and would probably be diminished if we had class rank.
its the best thing that could ever have happened to your school! Rank breeds cheating, scheming, and allowing students to explore what they love. Congrats!
The class rank does not change the cheating and competition. My school and other top schools in NJ don’t have class rank but people still cheat and scheme to get past a class to have dual admission at a college senior year.
Texas public school mom here, so I’m sure there’s no end in sight for ranking at S’s school. My S doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it but some of his classmates get pretty stressed. There’s some cheating which might go down without ranking, though there will always be students who cheat to increase their GPA even without the added pressure of ranking. I’d definitely be interested to see how different things would be without rank.
Our kids’ school does not rank, but it is a small specialty school with a tremendous reputation and the colleges seem to be aware of that. I’m glad that is one bit of stress removed from the kids’ lives. Our local high school does rank, and we hear of many of the complaints noted above - and the additional stress many kids go through. Both schools do have a valedictorian/salutatorian (one each only), and there is always talk of how some kids gamed the system for those coveted titles, as it is solely based on GPA.
Our small independent school does not rank. At the end of senior year, some students get some special commendation and it seems like those are the top 10% but it isn’t described that way.
We rank and it certainly puts kids at a disadvantage when many schools do not rank. The school understands our concerns and the counselors and parents have tried to change it for the past few years but a few vocal parents and an “old fashioned” school board has decided that a little competition is good (helps make the school one of the top in the state). I have NO problem with rankings if ALL schools were required to report a rank (no matter if they report it to students/families or not) or if there were NO penalty for attending a school that ranks. As it stands now, there is certainly a penalty for kids who come from a school who ranks vs. those who do not go to a ranked school.
To the kid who is #4 or #5 in the class - but yet not #1 or #2 – takes a little shine off of that application. The kids who are not in top 1%, 3%, 5%, or 10% and miss out on scholarships that are awarded to kids with lower stats but go to schools that do not have a ranking - no matter the rigor of the classes or the competition at the school that does rank - are at a serious disadvantage.
Ranking has not only increased blatant cheating in our school, but it also has high ranking kids taking summer school every year starting the summer after 8th grade to be able to load more APs into their school day during the year. Conversely, at our school students get rewarded by taking lunch and studyhalls over arts and languages and then all other courses are APs. They have no “lower weighted” art or music or health courses to dilute their weighted GPA. Teamwork and group projects are a mess with some kids holding back work or intentionally inserting errors in documentation or AMA format into the google docs then correcting on their final copy. Parents get into the game and fight the teachers for every + and - , while going over every test with a fine toothed comb looking for points for their kids. Top kids are absent from test days so that they can do make up tests in the testing center after school and with help from the “grapevine” of gossip about what was on the test.
Our top 18 ranked kids are all hundredths of a point from each other and all have taken required electives and gym in the summer so they can load up on more academic courses during the year (with lunch and studyhall to catch up) - and yet they are not all in the top 1-3% of the school - this is driving them crazy. The top 50 are all above 3.93 and weighted 4.6- all top 50 - 60 kids have at least 10 APs - yet only the top 42 are on the top 10% of their class. Lots of grumbling parents are realizing that their kids are not eligible for scholarships or honors colleges because of their ranks yet if they went to school one town over they would have amazing stats and be rewarded with merit money – it is crazy.
I would love to end the madness - but it is not going away as long as people feel that our kids are special snowflakes that need to be protected from competition.
ETA: sorry this is so long - obviously an issue for me…
If a school gives any sort of grades or evaluations, they are ranking at least in part. If the school is categorizing students in any way that allows colleges to “infer” ranking, that practice is tantamount to ranking.
Nothing wrong with students being competitive. The bad behavior around competition is expected - cheating, scheming, brown-nosing. Just like a penalty in football - doesn’t mean you should cancel the game for fear of a roughing the passer penalty. Kids need to learn how to compete fairly and decently. Participation trophies, no-cut sports, no-grade classes, no-rank schools. Just call everyone a valedictorian so there are no ill feelings. That does not prepare students for the real world.
Schools could ease the jockeying at the top by having the equivalent of magna and sum cum laude for graduation. Colleges will still put the numerical rank in context of rigor. Every class with have the home economics salutatorian in one fashion or another. That is not a good reason to manufacture and entire class of home ec salutatorians.
Keep decile tiers, but get rid of ranking. Taking one more AP class one could care less about, just to maintain ranking, is creating a culture of souless drones.