Thanks @1203southview and @DL43516 ! 
I know exactly how you feel. More than you think. I really really did not want to apply to Rice because I wanted to leave Texas. But Rice is not Texas at all. Even though I’d probably be 40 min from home I’d be okay with that now. And that would be wicked if we both ended up at Rice in August!
LOL I almost forgot that I applied here because $56k a year is utterly ridiculous. When are they releasing decisions again?
Last year the RD came out on the 24th, any idea that it will be the same this year? Or is everyone thinking the 31st? I hate being in the dark. I was so glad WashU came out early.
I’m predicting the 23rd. However, in 2013 it was the 21st. So I guess we’ll just have to wait for an official confirmation.
In the past, did Rice get any more specific as the time approached the decisions release date?
I dunno tbh. But with it being about a week from the predicted range of decision release dates, I’d imagine we should probably be getting an announcement pretty soon…but would they even announce anything over Spring Break?? Maybe we’ll all come back from Spring Break and immediately be able to know. That’d be great.
@LesPronoms as to WUSTL D had an OK resume and showed zero interest other than the common app, and was accepted. Who knows how they decide? Throw darts at a list on the wall?
I had an OK resume too (32 ACT and 33 superscore since WashU superscores, 3.7 UW GPA). I did an on-campus interview, visited admissions, off-campus info sessions, regularly e-mailed admissions, FA, and professors, etc. Applied ED. I think what got me rejected was the fact I am not in the top 10% of my high school classes. Universities as selective as WashU essentially throw sub-10% rankers in the trash.
I guess it’s not their fault, but they have to feed the USNews rankings.
@Jimkingwood WUSTL, from completely anecdotal experience on my part, seems to make admissions decisions based on whether the student will actually matriculate there (of which demonstrated interest plays a huge part). A couple of STS semi-finalists from my school district were wait-listed there, and the only conclusion that I can come to is that WUSTL did not think that these students would matriculate. Again, completely anecdotal here, not looking to stir any bad feelings. Congratulations to your daughter as well!
@LesPronoms
It seems so. I was waitlisted by WUSTL on Monday and was really depressed because I thought it meant I was underqualified for all the top colleges I applied to. 3 days later I received a likely letter from an Ivy college so that made me feel a little more relieved.
How much emphasis does Rice place on class ranking?
I am asking because my school does not officially rank and I put “None” for ranking on my Common Application. My counselor mentioned what it would have been had there been official, however, in the letter and it is in the top 10%. I go to an extremely small school.
Sorry if this question is obvious, I’m rather nervous.
@SRB88888 Rice ranks class rank as “very important”. If you ever need to see how schools view certain aspects of an application, google the common data set and look it over.
@SRB88888 As to ranking, for schools that don’t rank or reveal GPA - such as my daughter’s private school - the colleges can usually call the school and get the rank and GPA over the phone.
@LesPronoms Oh no offense intended or taken. No one should feel bad about a rejection, my point is “who knows how an app gets past a gatekeeper”. I have seen apps - my D’s is one - that were accepted into schools that preach and preach community involvement and service work as important, and yet the applicant have zero listed. We’ve all seen low GPA admits from every demographic. Public schools waitlist their high-achiever in-state residents b/c they want OOS money. D got in to a major flagship because she is OOS and a full-payer, while in-state geniuses were rejected. And I feel bad for high-achieving Asian-American non-admits because we all know why some of that happens, e. g. California. It’s all a game.
Having said that, D does have a 35 ACT.
Average class rank and “Percent of Students in the Top 10% of their High School Classes” are factors weighed on USNews. Thus, there is an unusual desire for selective schools to admit students in the top decile. Tufts and WashU, as two examples, usually have around 90% of their admitted students in the top 10% of their HS classes. This means only 10% of the entering class has a class rank that’s lower than the top 10%.
If you are an unhooked applicant not in the top decile, it will be very, very hard, unusually hard for you to gain entry. Even if you came from a challenging high school and took challenging classes. It’s simply part of the political game of the USNews rankings.
For one example, Reed, who refuses to submit data to USNews, only has around 52% of their admitted students who were in the top 10% of their HS classes. However, they maintain high average test scores, GPAs, and a fairly low admittance rate.
I met this unfortunate truth and I have been told by people who have been “in” the admissions office that at selective institutions, your application is not considered very much if you’re not in the top 10%–regardless of the difficulty or size of your high school.
I’m not entirely too sure how it works for schools that don’t rank. Colleges are usually able to deduce your pseudo-class rank in these scenarios, but I am unsure how that number plays into admissions.
once you ARE in the top 10% of your HS class, admissions processes do become holistic: a good essay will get you in, great ECs, nice test scores, GPA, etc. I really do think that HS rank is heavily weighted at selective institutions, even at ones that don’t mark it as so on their Common Data Set. Vast majorities of admitted students to colleges in the top ~30ish of unis and the top ~10ish I’d say of LACs were top decilers in their HS. You can look up data for each one if you’re interested.
Sorry if my post sounded kind of ranty–but I think class rank is a pretty unfair metric, of course, partially because I’ve been the “victim” of it. As a middle schooler in 8th grade, I did not choose to take honors classes freshman year, and I only took one sophomore year. Even though I received mostly A’s and a few B’s, I did not receive the “weighted” GPAs (ex. getting 4.5 for an A instead of 4), so I did not get a higher weighted GPA and thus a higher class rank. I feel punished that I did not make the right choice as an 8th grader to take classes that would garner me a higher class rank in 3 years. I took a full load of APs senior year and I received straight A’s first semester, and last year (junior year) I received almost all A’s in almost all AP classes as well. No beautiful essay, test scores, or ECs can save me from this number.
I’ve been rejected at WashU, UChicago, and Swarthmore thus far (all early action/decision) and I am pinpointing the main cause to be my class rank. These schools, while they are of course selective in their own right and one should not predict to be admitted, highly value class rank; while it may or may not be shown in their CDS, vast majorities of admitted students were in the top 10% of their HS classes.
ex:
Swarthmore had 92% in the top decile of HS classes last year
http://www.questbridge.org/swarthmore-overview
More than nine out of 10 incoming freshmen place in the top 10% of their high school class
https://careercenter.wustl.edu/whywustl/Pages/default.aspx
There are plenty more examples I can give you, but it’s no coincidence that HS class rank is weighted so highly. It’s not simply because the students they “happen” to admit are just naturally intelligent to be ranked so much, it’s a factor specifically looked for and you are severely limited at admission to these schools without it.
Good luck!
Good luck to you too, I hope you get in despite your class ranking. I’m in a really weird situation regarding class rank as well that I’m hoping doesn’t ruin my chances.
Basically, if you go by academic classes I am ranked 1 in my class. However, my school counts PE, which for some reason was overly difficult. As in, we had tests that were many times harder than any math test I’ve taken on sports trivia I will never use or need. In 10th grade I got two Bs in PE and As in everything else, which caused me to drop from then until now to 3rd place by only a few GPA .01s. This ordinarily wouldn’t be an issue, but my class is exceedingly tiny. My counselor told me that my school does not officially rank, and that since my class is so small I should just put No Ranking (“None” in common application). He told me that he mentioned the PE thing in my teacher report and what my class rank would have been/is, but I’m really nervous now that Rice is just going to look that I don’t have a rank on the Common Application standard section and write me off. I didn’t know at the time how much Class Rank mattered. What is really annoying is that if I would have just put 3rd it would still be in the top 10%. Rice is my top choice and I really hope that this little thing doesn’t ruin my shot.
Is there anyone else who had a similar situation and has been accepted to a top college? I’m not expecting anyone to have the PE issue, but perhaps someone has a school that does not officially rank and didn’t post their ranking on the application.
@SRB88888 plenty of schools don’t officially rank. Sometimes, the college goes and calls the school, or at least that’s what I heard. Regardless, I wouldn’t worry in your case. If he explained it in his letter you are fine.
Haha DL43516 I was just looking through Brown’s rd page and saw that you had posted there too. Looks like we have at least two schools in common. Do you have a preference between brown and rice?
Definitely Brown, it’s my first choice I think! What about you? I’m assuming Brown lol
Actually I think maybe Rice, but I’m not sure. I still haven’t visited so I need to see in person. I visited Brown a couple years ago though and I LOVED it, so I’ll be happy if I get into either one.