<p>Many schools report the percentage of students who were in the top 10 percent of their class. Do you think I am correct in assuming that the schools are referring to UNWEIGHTED rankings?</p>
<p>No. I think that is more likely to be weighted class rank, although it's probably a mish-mash of both.</p>
<p>Might be different for the UC schools as I believe they have their own specific system California schools must use.</p>
<p>Thanks, idad. Mostly my interest is with the small, selective LACs. The UCs ALWAYS do their own thing!</p>
<p>I gulped recently when I saw that most of the schools my D is applying to (such as Wellesley) report that 75% or so of their admitted students rank in the top decile. </p>
<p>My d's unweighted rank makes it -- but not with a lot of room to spare. Her weighted rank looks much better. </p>
<p>Anyone else have experience with this? I bet there is some common definition for the common data set.</p>
<p>No. There's definitely no standard. Most colleges are just regurgitating what the high schools give them for rank. State universities sometimes dictate a specific system to the state's high schools. I know that UMass publishes a weighting system that most, but not all, of the public high schools here follow.</p>
<p>At most of the selective LACs, about half of the applicants high schools do not report a class rank. But, by and large, the colleges have ways of figuring it out, so I would assume that the reported percentages closely mirror the percentages for the entire class.</p>
<p>When you see class ranks below the top 10%, it's a good assumption that those are coming from fancy prep schools and magnet high schools where you could be an excellent student and miss the top 10%. The really good students go deeper than the top 10% at places like Exeter or Thomas Jefferson High (the northern Virginia science and math magnet).</p>
<p>The biggest miscalculation I see here on College Confidential is not understanding the importance of class rank. Students think that just posting big SAT numbers is enough when, in reality, big SATs and weak class rank can be the kiss of death. The challenge is that evaluating class rank can only be done viz-a-viz the specific high school. Where have kids with that class rank at that high school been accepted?</p>
<p>As an example, here's the breakdown of the accepted students at Swarthmore this year. The first number is the number who applied in each category. The second is the number admitted, followed by the acceptance rate for that group. This is for the half of the accepted students who submitted a class rank. </p>
<p>Valedictorian/salutatorian 505 153 30%<br>
98th-100th percentile 350 101 29%<br>
90th-97th percentile 721 175 24%<br>
Below 90th percentile 456 48 11% </p>
<p>You can see that both the number of apps and the acceptance rate fall like a stone outside the top 10%, basically your odds are half of the overall acceptance rate (not good odds). There's probably a "rest of the story" with each of those 48.</p>
<p>Hunt around for similar numbers at all of the schools you are considering and try to get some history from your specific high school.</p>
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My d's unweighted rank makes it -- but not with a lot of room to spare. Her weighted rank looks much better.
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<p>That's typical. I think that generally the class ranks for the better students rises as the weighting for the AP and advanced courses really kicks in compared to the kids getting straight A's in home economics. The colleges will use the weighted class rank as long as it's provided.</p>
<p>Thanks idad, this is helpful.</p>
<p>I spent some time looking for how the common data set defines class rank and I didn't see any clear guidance. </p>
<p>My hunch is that if an LAC is given both ranks (which my d's school does), they would prefer to use the rated rank because it would make their students look better and their school more selective.</p>
<p>Right!</p>
<p>The weighted rank is also more accurate for a mixed environment high school. The advanced courses are supposed to be harder.</p>
<p>If I recall, my daughter's high school transcript gave three pieces of information: unweighted GPA, weighted GPA, weighted class rank. They follow the UMASS guidelines for weighting of "honors" and AP courses (a half point for some, a full point for others).</p>