<p>Rankings help to a certain degree, but I still don' think that they are the answer. Some kids take much tougher courseloads than others. I am ranked 21/278 at my school, but I don't put too much emphasis on this number because there are kids above me who haven't taken a single Honors or AP class. My entire courseload has pretty much been Honors or AP level courses, except Religion (I go to a Catholic school). I am glad that colleges consider the difficulty level of a student's courseload since that could be my saving grace. </p>
<p>I ask for a conversion between my 100 point GPA and the 4.0 system because I want to know where I stand as far as colleges are concerned. All of the colleges report their high school GPA averages on the 4.0 scale. So when I see a 3.6, I have no idea what they're talking about.</p>