To me, the problem is when the ranking is not accurately reflective of the student’s quality academically. My D’s best friend has never had a B - ever. By the end of her junior year, last year, she had also already completed 7 AP courses, with 5s on each. But our school district’s silly weighting method for ranking has her 11th in her class. None of the 10 students ranked higher have a 4.0 unweighted GPA though.
3 years ago, the Salutatorian had a D semester average in one AP class… but he ranked 2nd due to all of the extra weighing added in via extra virtual school classes taken online… where cheating is all too prevalent. In that high school class, my D1 had only one B during her 4 yrs of high school in a single AP course, but she was ranked in the 89th percentile… 56th places behind a kid with a D and C on his permanent record. Sure… if they both applied to the same elite school, the kid ranked 2nd would be found out. But when only one student from a high school applies to a top college, that school may be justified in assuming that those ranked higher scored with better grades.
When the elite colleges expect successful applicants to be ranked in the top 5% or at a minimum the top 10% of their graduating classes, such a requirement assumes that those ranked higher than the applicant performed better academically. In our district, that is likely true less than one-third of the time though. When my D2 was speaking with admissions officials from a few of the elite colleges that had rejected her older sister, the likely reason given was her Rank In Class. 89th percentile did not meet their expectations. They ignored the 3.99 unweighted GPA and put too much emphasis on Rank.
So… if schools insist on Ranking, they should do so accurately. And no student with Cs and Ds should be ranked 1st or 2nd in their high school class due to silly weighting methodologies that favor the quantity of classes attempted over the actual grades earned in those classes…