My 9th grader currently attends public school, we are considering transferring him to a private school. The only hesitation we have is class rankings just posted and although it’s early he is in the top 10 of a class of about 800. If we transfer to a private school the class size would only be about 80 kids which would make it very difficult to finish in the top 10 percent based on gpa not transferring so he would start fresh. Do colleges take that into consideration? Will being at a smaller private school hurt his chances of admission to Texas schools that automatically accept top 10 percent.
Yes, they take this into consideration. And so do the private schools - many don’t rank. You may want to move this to the prep school forum where this has been explore before.
The TX situation, however, is a special one. I think the goal was to make this straightforward, so you might get tripped up as an auto-admit that way. My hunch though is that he’d still be admitted, just not on that metric. A couple folks on that board can probably provide better guidance.
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Top X % is top X % no matter where you go.
Some schools will know the school or rigor of courses and the 50th percentile might get in whereas another school no one past the 20th percentile might get in.
It’s not just rank that will matter though but GPA too. Some schools have automerit by GPA so if your student is below, regardless of which school they’ll attend, they won’t make the cut (for merit I’m talking). I’m not saying you’ll be looking at that kind of school but if you were. So if it’s going to be harder grading, that’s something to think about.
Why don’t you get a list of college placements by rank from the school so you can see how they’ve done. I’m sure they have that readily available as part of their marketing pitch.
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The only hesitation about transferring is class rank? that’s unusual
The Texas auto-admit rule only applies to in-state students- are you in TX? If not, the OOS limit is the challenge, not the rank.
As @tsbna44 said, top X% is top X%, whether the class size is 800 or 80.
And yes, there are some private schools (maybe a couple of dozen?) whose academic reputation is such that being above average in the class is seen as comparable to top of the class elsewhere- but not so much for the vast majority of private schools. Even ones that will tell you about their great relationships with the big name brand colleges and show you their great acceptances over the last 5 years (it’s always a 5 year spread they show you). What that doesn’t tell you is how many students that covers: often a small number of the top students will account for most/all of those acceptances.
That is not to dis private schools! many do have overall very good college acceptances, and the students tend to land on their feet, well prepared for college (hence the name ‘prep school’…). The opportunities, the implicit challenge built into have an achievement-oriented cohort, the level of support when there are bumps in the road can all make for a great overall experience.
Some private schools don’t even have class rank.
My impression is that the Texas Education Code (TEC), §51.803 was created to encourage good public school students who are from underperforming districts. In such districts, even a valedictorian might be ill prepared for College Algebra.
If you are pursuing the private school option to ensure greater academic rigor, then ultimately this should not adversely affect your son’s ability to gain acceptance at state schools. I suggest that you study the matriculation lists, as apparently this is a concern for you. FWIW, 12 members of St Mark’s '22 matriculated at UT Austin.
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Yes, we live in Texas. Thank you for the help, appreciate your response.
My first question would be is if the private school(s) has/have class rank.
FWIW I don’t know any local public or private schools personally that have class rankings by individual anymore… I am sure there are plenty, still, but far from a given in my area. I have one kid at the LPS and they did away with rank years ago. No honor role, either. Only remote indication of where kids stand against peers is eligibility to be in national honor society (but don’t even know what % of class that represents, it is a fixed GPA/weight GPA cut off!). Many kids go to tippy top colleges. Admissions officers place kids in context of their school in holistic admissions. Private schools we’ve looked at also don’t have rank by individual either (though some have % ranges by GPA, so you can know if not 20% but not #3 out 150, etc).
But overall private school is far from a guarantee of better college admissions outcomes.
I would imagine in Texas every private school has a class rank. I don’t know - but would imagine given that they probably have parents that want to feed into the state system.
No, very few private schools have class rank. In June of the student’s junior year, the counselor will certify to UT-Austin which student’s qualified for the top 6% of the class and thus are auto-admitted.
Our school provided no further certifications.UT took students from the top third, A& M from the top half or so of the class.
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Overall perhaps but entirely specific to the private school. For example please see St Marks of Texas matriculation stats which suggests this small private school (similar in size to what OP describes) places kids far better than a “typical” school. 4 at Harvard, 3 to Brown, JHU, MIT, Princeton, etc.
https://www.smtexas.org/academics/college-counseling
In addition please see below they dont rank which is the case for many Texas privates and still do just fine at UT.
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Interesting - so there’s a mechanism around this.
There’s a rank per se - but not published…I say that because if they are “certifying” the top 6%.
Would that be correct?
Correct. Neither students nor faculty appear to know the rank. The Registrar sends the certification direcly to UT and informed my student
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Just would like to point out that the number of legacies of “elite” colleges who attend private high schools at which students are affluent is pretty large. The students body of these high schools also have many of the benefits that wealth provides in college admissions.
It is, therefore, better to focus on the matriculations to colleges which do not have legacy advantages in admissions, and, even better, those which also do not have advantages for athletes, particularly in "rich-kid sports.
Separating the benefits of wealth is impossible, and some private schools will provide many of these advantages to lower income students as well.
Because UT and TAMU campuses do not consider legacy, and the number of recruited athletes is relatively small and focuses on more widely popular sports such as football, these numbers are more useful than # matriculations to, say, Harvard or Rice.
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You need to compare where prep school kids would have gone if they stayed at LPS not total numbers of them in each school. Of course schools that select for good grades/scores have good outcomes. What matters is would the 3 kids who went to Brown, in your example above, not have gone to Brown from their LPS? Depends…depends on LPS, depends on if kid is at top of class (or more middle of pack), if this kid is an athlete (and what sport), if their parents can access good college advising/coaching outside of school, etc.
Lots of kids from my current LPS go to to Ivy and top 20 universities and SLACs. (Not all that different than numbers you put in your post, though out of a bigger number of course. (But the lowest-performing kids in public school were never going to be ivy bound even if dropped in prep schools).
I personally went to a NE BS and being in top 10% there vs. in top 1-3 in my LPS probably didn’t matter all that much to my admission IF I had had same level of support in process at both schools (I didn’t). So BS “bought” me better guidance, which isn’t exclusively domain of them if you have knowledgeable parents or outside counselor. I’d say my school had like 7 kids go to Princeton, 4 to Yale and 4 to Harvard. Probably more than 1/2 recruits, though. Roughly same today per alumni magazines.
The top private schools do provide insanely good education, don’t doubt that.
Not going to debate but I am also pretty familiar. I attended Exeter and have a kid that just graduated from Brown and attended an elite prep.
The OP was specifically asking about colleges perceptions of class ranking for smaller private schools. The example I provided confirms that colleges do calibrate to perceived rigor even in a state like TX for the flagship.
You seem to almost reluctantly agree with my point.
Elite preps do tend to weed out and accept through admissions kids likely to succeed academically. Yes these kids do tend to do well in terms of college acceptances but don’t underestimate the influence of the schools reputation, perceived rigor, access to test prep, the importance of good GCs and staff that knows how to word the perfect LORs. It isn’t entirely the school that results in elite preps placing so disproportionately well but it certainly has an impact.
They provide much more in terms of access and support in my experience.
I never said private school didn’t help anyone.
I said “But overall private school is far from a guarantee of better college admissions outcomes.”
I still don’t think it is close to a guarantee. I could cite peers (and kids of current friends) who might have done better at LPS for a variety of reasons too…(eating disorders, drugs/alcohol, etc) that may not have happened in a different, less intense setting with lower prevalence rates. Like admissions, we will never know, but not a net positive for some kids). Our kids who cheated at my BS were expelled, wouldn’t have been in LPS, likely not even have been caught. Maybe edge cases.
And we are way off topic, probably my fault, for which I apologize to mods and OP:)
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I think we are agreeing and not your fault 
The likely practical effect is that moving to the private school will likely reduce the number of auto-admit safeties among Texas public universities. This does not mean that the student will not be admitted to those Texas public universities that would have been auto-admit with a top rank in the public school, but it means that there is a risk of that.
The private school will presumably cost money, which could reduce the amount of money available for college.
Of course, what has not been mentioned is whether the private school has academic or other advantages over the public school that would be useful to the student.
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