<p>I'm wondering how important rank is in colleges' consideration of applications. Let's say you are in the top 1% of your class, but not number 1. What role does this play in the application? My class has about 700 students, and I'd like to know how this comes out in the colleges' eyes.</p>
<p>It varies from college to college. Some colleges place significant importance on class rank, to the point where you are guaranteed admission if you fall within a range. Others see it as a nice plus that would improve their opinions of you. And others don’t care about the class rank at all.</p>
<p>yeah I’ve been wandering about that too. Like I transferred from a neighborhood school where I was no 1 to a magnet school that offers many more AP classes, has a 7 times smaller class site, and ranks high on national ranking. My GPA automatically puts me into top 25%, not even in top 10. So I’m really freaked out if this can affect me negatively in the college admission process.</p>
<p>Well, I’m applying to good schools, like some of the best law and engineering schools. But I’m applying to them because I still haven’t decided what I want to do. So I was wondering, would a school, let’s say like M.I.T., pay close attention that I’m not number 1 (yet) 
or would they see that I’m still at the top of my class?</p>
<p>Honestly, if MIT actually cared that much about whether or not you were #1, they’d just make it a requirement. And correct me if I’m wrong, but MIT is one of those schools that reviews your application holistically. So you can easily make up your “flaws” with some good EC’s and a strong personal statement.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Based on what is reported in the Common Data Sets, University of Texas, Austin cares a lot about class rank (to the exclusion of high school grades), while University of California, Berkeley does not care about class rank at all (high school grades are highly important).</p>
<p>[MIT’s</a> Common Data Set](<a href=“MIT Institutional Research”>MIT Institutional Research) says that class rank is “considered” but at a lesser level than other academic criteria, which are all listed as “important”.</p>