<p>I've brought this up before but I was at a gathering this week of a lot of high school seniors from several different towns around here. We talked about class ranking. I have a 3.68 and am ranked 150 out of 460. Others who have the same average at a different school are ranked much higher. One person I know is in top 10 percent with close averages to mine and types of classes taken. How do schools figure this out? And why is ranking so important if it's so all over the place/</p>
<p>it places you into the context of your own school.</p>
<p>for example- the kids with the 3.68 who’s top 10 percent. maybe his school is a really difficult school.</p>
<p>Ranking is NOT so important to most colleges. It’s just one of many factors considered.</p>
<p>Class Rank can offer colleges some good information or can be very misleading. The reporting of class rank if classes are weighted can be useful information for college admission. On the other hand it can also be harmful to a student who gets less than perfect grades but attends a highly competitive HS where most students are considerably above average. In this case a very good student can have a low class rank if most/many of the other students are stellar. A student could have high SATs/ACTs, but maybe earn a couple or a few B’s and end up in the bottom third of the class. Many of the “better” HSs have opted to not report class rank for this reason. There are articles on the web about this if you Google it. </p>
<p>In my districts case we listed class rank but didn’t weigh the classes. We had kids taking all Honors classes, some at the local university, getting one B and ending up with lower class rank than kids who took no Honors classes or attended the local vocational center, but who had gotten all A’s. Actually, if a student got a C, he/she was ranked lower than the kids in the special services unit (Asperger and Autisic) who received no grades lower than a B. We had kids who were eliminated from obtaining scholarship money and/or denied admission because of class rank. It is something that parents and students need to be aware of. It was going out on the transcripts and no one even knew it was happening. I only became aware of it from a friend who sat on the scholarship selection committee at the local university. D would not have been offered any scholarship money as her application was placed in the “top 15%” bin. (We only have 220 in a class.) The only B she ever received was in Calc at that university! She had the second highest ACT of anyone who had applied to the University that year!</p>
<p>I did some calling around to college admission offices and presented my findings to the administration. It wasn’t without some bumps in the road, but it has now been changed. Listing class rank has been omitted on the applications. It didn’t help my D, but I was determined not to have it happen to someone else. Ask your guidance counselors how it is figured in your district and whether listing class rank is optional. Good luck.</p>
<p>OP and vossron: My findings from calling many admit offices was that, “If it is there, we consider it. If it is not listed, we don’t think anything of it.”</p>
<p>That sounds exactly right, considered as one of many factors.</p>