I was talking to a college consultant and he said ranking makes things easier for college adcoms. In his opinion, not ranking hearts cream of the class though it makes things easier for rest. If you are ranked 1 or 2 or 5 in a class of 1,000, why wouldn’t it make you look good?
If fine arts courses have less weight then your GPA would still be lower than ones who swapped choir and newspaper for for random AP lite courses and GPA neutral office aid. If your schools mentions that highest GPA is 4.5 and yours is 4.25 then College would assume your rank is not in top 10.
Update: Son is looking at courses for his senior year. So good that he can choose whatever he wants without having to consider the class rank. Senior year should be a VICTORY TOUR for kids who have been busting their hump since middle school!
That’s as it should be! In high school, students should be free to choose electives based on interest, not ranking effect. So great that your school moved to this model!
On that basis, why have grades senior year? Don’t those interfere with what should be a victory tour?
There are a lot of kids at schools who rank who don’t let that influence the classes they take, ECs, etc. Being at a school that ranks doesn’t have to tie your hands. Unless you let it.
Colleges require high school’s to send a mid-senior year report that usually contains a list of courses, grades and GPA. If your son applies early to a college and is admitted, his acceptance is based upon maintaining the same caliber of grades and course rigor in his senior year as he had in his freshman, sophomore and junior years. And if applying RD, very few colleges will admit a student with a mid-year report that shows a downward trend. Bottom line: Senior year is not the time for a victory lap, as students cannot afford to have senior slump.
FWIW: Most US high schools no longer provide ranking to colleges, as it’s thought by many guidance counselor’s to disadvantage students not in the top decile (90% of a graduating class). However, this just means that admissions offices have had to get creative; many now line-up all applications from a specific high school in GPA order and then compare course rigor. If your high school supplies grades and GPA to a college but not ranking, the college is evaluating students by this “relative ranking” method. It takes a bit more time, but allows an admissions office to do the same thing as if a high school had provided an exact ranking
If you are interested in selective colleges or merit scholarships, the rigor of the senior year courses selected is something colleges look at, regardless of rank issues. Check out this other CC thread on that topic:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1954419-hs-senior-year-rigor-how-important-p1.html
I suspect if a senior year course schedule looked more like a “victory tour” than somebody interested in furthering their preparedness for college, that will have a negative impact.
you guys are funny. I said victory tour - not TOGA party. I highly doubt there are many kids these days that go from AP Calc AP English AP History AP Bio as juniors to no math, CP English, Wood shop and Life Science as seniors
I’m just suggested that the electives as a senior shouldn’t have to be a 4th 5th and 6th AP course just to maintain a 1/100 of a point lead over the other top kids in your class
It’s totally nothing to get upset over. Quite frankly, I hate it when schools “rank” students by number. Sure, top 5 or 10% is fine, but in all honestly, is there really a difference between the valedictorian and someone who is in the lower portion of the top 5% of their class? Who cares?
I’ll be honest. High school class rank doesn’t have much bearing on how well someone will do in college. The person in the bottom portion of the top 20% of their high school class may end up being summa-cum-laude in college. You never know. College is a completely different ballgame, and some people thrive more in college vs. high school.
Honestly, no one is going to care if your child was valedictorian in high school when it comes to college coursework, grad school admissions, jobs, etc. High school class rank is such a short-term thing to get riled up about. Worry more about college class rank if your child wants to get into professional or grad school. That’s the rank (especially the GPA) that REALLY counts.
My school got rid of class rank but for a different reason.
My school had to shut down one of the four schools in my district causing nearly everyone to get rearranged and moved to different schools (I had to switch from one school to another for my senior year). The district didn’t want the valedictorian from one school to possibly take over another valedictorian when switching schools so the district completely got rid of them.
Must be nice…