Role of Class Rank in Admissions

Parents Forum
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<p>Also, when kids change schools, particularly from private to public, or public to private they often get burned.....different grading policies. In my D's case, she changed from private to public after 9th grade. We simply needed to save the money for college with EGREGIOUS increases in tuition the past 10 years. Her former private school was on a 10 pt. scale and a lot of bumping went on (in one case, a student scored an 87 in Chemistry, was bumped to an A, and the transcript fudged to make it look like she got a 90 or better). At her public school, there was NO bumping...in fact it was a ruthless computer system that determined what happened. It was a 7 pt scale, meaning a 92.1 was a flat B (not B plus) and a 92.6 was rounded up to an A-93. Further, there was a HUGE difference in the number of honors classes available in 9th grade and she got burned when she transfered. And as is often the case, taking AP courses from one teacher was not the same as another teacher....who graded harder and was a markedly better teacher. NONE of this appears on a transcript.</p>

<p>College admissions is a difficult process...often a game. US News reported this week that at some schools it greatly improves your admission chances by applying early admission, with a whopping 20% advantage at such prestigious schools as UNC-Chapel Hill, Notre Dame and some Ivy League schools simply by applying ED or EA. And a punishing result if you wait to apply RD with the "surge." That is a huge differential and really rather unfair. Colleges can find out if you applied ED anywhere else, they can find out if you applied for financial aid and what your finances are, and they can find out where all you applied.....FAFSA discloses ALL of this to them as does the college board when they send your scores.</p>

<p>Class rank is a very bogus measure. What really matters is how strong the high school is, the strength of their courses and the reputation of their faculty. There is a great divergence between high schools and their grading policies...and in some cases how they "window dress" their college applicants. A lot of private schools PROVIDE a college consultant to polish the apples so to speak. Public schools cannot afford to do that and would have significant legal obstacles and problems if they did.</p>

<p>Ivy League schools and other elite LAC's often take a huge majority of kids from feeder private schools. </p>

<p>I empathize with the admissions jobs out there....its not an easy process and its very hard to discern a gem from an overpolished rock. Pardon the analogy.</p>

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<p>I come from a moderately competitive California public high school. Currently my class, 2008, has 665 enrolled students, allowing for 66 students in the top decile, based on weighted gpa. If our school were to rank using an unweighted scale, we would have three valedictorians with a 4.0 gpa (that is, assuming they earn the same grades senior year). I do not think this is particularly fair to those individuals who have a more rigorous schedule, and for this reason I think our administration chose to rank using weighted gpa. I know for certain that only the top 3-4% are admitted to our state's top publics (Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD), while only the valedictorian has been admitted to the Ivy League or comparable LAC's in the past three years. That means that there are potentially another 35 students all ranked in the top decile who are not admitted to top institutions. Perhaps this is the reason why our guidance counseling does not encourage students to apply to top schools based only on being in the top 10%. I don't know, it's JMHO. Excellent thread, by the way.</p>

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<p>My niece goes to a public school in Iowa that doesn't send a lot of students to top schools. For that reason, I think, the school doesn't particularly care about how it ranks students. It doesn't weigh AP classes or honors classes any differently than regular classes. My niece's 3.7 in a schedule of mostly AP and honors classes doesn't even put her in the top 25% because there are so many kids getting As in regular classes. I assume that for admissions purposes, colleges will look at the strength of her schedule. But there are lots of schools that give out merit scholarships based on class rank and she's just out of luck as far as they go.</p>

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<p>Do colleges look at the rank 9-12 or 10-12?</p>

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<p>AdOfficer, </p>

<p>Thanks for this insight into the process of how your school evaluate transcripts and ranking...</p>

<p>A question for you: if the school doesn't do a great job presenting its programs and course offerings to colleges (via school reports, GCs who are overloaded with work, etc.), how do you measure the quality of the program? I assume you can't possibly visit every school within your region. </p>

<p>I have been helping some family friends whose kids are applying to colleges this fall (I also have a rising senior), and there is such a HUGE difference in the way schools present their students and program offerings.</p>

<p>Is there a place in this process for a student to present the nitty-gritty of a program or course that would be helpful to you, but not monopolize the essays?</p>

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<p>MY D3 attended a very rigorous small college prep HS program for grades 9 & 10, then transferred to another school to finish HS. her marks which put her at top 10-20 at her first school dropped her to not even top 50% at her new school becasue the first school graded so differently, the new school did not adjust despite her walking in and having straight As. Thanks to CC knowledge and her being kid 3 not kid 1, I was able to present things to her college choices such that they could see the big picture. I am sure it helped that she was looking at LACs, but they were able to give her the chance to qualify for merit aid and leave out the rnaking considerations, so for people who have moved around a little helicoptering goes a long way in making sure the universities can evaluate the real child- though I don't know how a big public, like a UC would view it all!</p>

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<p>MsterLinks...
each school does their own thing, though i think most admissions folks would agree that junior and senior years are scrutinized most. that doesn't mean we ignore freshman and sophomore year (because we certainly don't), but, as i said in the past, an upward trend is good!</p>

<p>CountingDown...
there are plenty of high schools that do not present themselves well on behalf of students, but the internet and telephone are great tools to help us get the info we need about a student's school. i know that in my office, we try to make sure that officers stick with the same territories every year so that they continue to learn more and more about the schools in their particular areas. when we train new officers or if a territory changes hands, meetings take place to discuss them. i personally make it a point not to read a student's file if i am unfamiliar with their high school until i become familiar with it. </p>

<p>i think that a student can use the interview process to explain their high schools and the programs they are following. most highly selective schools offer alumni interviews - so even if you can't get to campus, you can still interview with someone who can relay the information directly to the admissions office. i don't think it is a good idea to use the essay to convey this information...the essay should be about the student and something that is important to them (and why it is important to them!!!). however, i don't think it is a bad idea for the STUDENT to drop a line in their application about it...there is a place in the common application where a student can throw this in, for example. </p>

<p>i'm glad somemom was successful in her pursuits to advacate for her kids, and, as she mentioned, helicoptering can go a long way...but there is a VERY fine line between conveying important information and being intrusive (which it seems like somemom understood!). students need to advocate for themselves in this process - afterall, they are applying to college, not mom and dad. if your child is uncomfortable communicating with admissions offices, try and go through their guidance counselor. if that fails, making a call to an admissions office may be appropriate, as seems to have been the case for somemom, but tread lightly...</p>

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<p>I was really surprised to learn that students identified by counselors as in the top 10% but from schools that don't officially rank are never the less included in the reported top 10%. I guess everyone does that if it’s considered acceptable since to do otherwise would put a school at a disadvantage in terms of the reported data. Obviously, there can be pretty wide divergence between a schools reported % in top 10 % and the true number. There is nothing especially wrong with this as long as everyone understands the rules. I have to admit that when I first saw that statistic a few years ago I thought that a student was toast if not in the top 10% and unhooked. I think it is important for students in competitive high schools to know that not being in the top 10% is not a death sentence at highly competitive colleges.</p>

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<p>I still believe that its impossible to get to an Ivy League without being in top 10% or unhooked. The overwhelming majority of top 10%'ers at those schools (95%+) make anyone not in the top 10% either a fluke or a recruited athlete or someone who cured cancer. Guess I'll have to try to do one or the other o_O</p>

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<p>RootBeer: The numbers don't lie. If a school is sending 40-50% of its students to top whatever universities and LACs, then a certain number of them will be going to Ivy League colleges (probably not HYP) without being in the top 10% of their classes. When the Wall St. Journal did its high school ranking two years ago, there were 20-30 schools that sent 10% or more of their classes to the Ivy League (minus Columbia), Duke, Chicago, or Pomona (as a proxy for noncooperating Stanford), and that didn't include any of the boarding schools or any small private schools (class <50) of the sort found in Manhattan. If you estimate an adjustment for MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Columbia, and LACs (and for kids taking scholarships at other schools), it's a safe bet that ALL of those schools, and many of those not included in the survey, are sending some kids outside their top 10% to Ivy League colleges. Some of those kids are recruited athletes or have other hooks, but most not. The private school my kids attended once upon a time regularly sent 40% of its classes to Ivy-level colleges, and it had nowhere near the success of the top NYC schools.</p>

<p>However, very few public schools were in that group -- Thomas Jefferson, Stuyvesant, and Scarsdale only, if I recall correctly. Most of the other famous, competitive public schools were well under 10%, even those that are feeders for specific colleges (Ithaca High did very well). I think for the vast majority of kids, a 10% rule of thumb would be unrealistically generous.</p>

<p>5% of the Ivy League admitted students in any year is 600-700 kids. That's a drop in the bucket of the applicant pool, but it's a pretty substantial number of people in absolute terms.</p>

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<p>JHS, could you just explain your exclusions of Columbia in your post 50?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
In setting up this study, Weekend Journal picked as our 10 colleges a group that included but wasn't limited to the Ivy League. Based on recommendations from admissions experts and guidance counselors, plus lists of SAT scores and acceptance rates, we narrowed our choices to seven Ivies -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Brown -- supplemented by three of the most exclusive colleges in the West, Midwest and South. These were Pomona, the University of Chicago, and Duke. (We were unable to get data from an eighth Ivy, Columbia University, or from one of the most exclusive colleges on the West Coast, Stanford University. However, Pomona also has impressive selectivity rates and SAT scores.)</p>

<p>For matriculation data from the high-school class of 2003, we relied on college face books and interviews with colleges and high schools. However, a handful of high schools didn't return our calls or wouldn't confirm our numbers. Our decision to include only schools that sent 20 or more students to our choice colleges was made to help the survey be more manageable.</p>

<p>As an additional check, we compiled the admissions data for three prestigious small colleges across the country, Williams, Amherst and CalTech, to see if our survey results would change significantly with those schools included. They didn't.</p>

<p>Our numbers thresholds, to be sure, excluded some small schools that had an extremely high admissions success rate. For example, New York's Collegiate School -- which John F. Kennedy Jr. once attended -- fell just below our minimum class-size requirement, with a graduating class last year of 49 students. However, a whopping 25 of them, or 51%, went to our college picks; that would have made it No. 1 in our study. Among the other elite schools with famous names that fell below our class-size cutoff were Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Mass., and Nightingale-Bamford and Brearley in New York. All had impressive acceptance rates that would have put them high in our rankings. Notably, Roxbury Latin, with tuition of $15,200, is also an exceptional deal among private schools. Its 40% acceptance rate was almost as high as Saint Ann's.</p>

<p>Then again, it's important to remember that a secondary-school education shouldn't just be judged on whether it gets you to the gates of Harvard Yard. Even as high schools tout their admissions successes, they also emphasize to parents that the name at the top of the diploma can never be a guarantee of entry to a top college. For their part, A-list colleges say they pick students based on individual merit, and they say they don't give preference to particular alma maters.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>(From the article accompanying the April 2, 2004 WSJ survey, emphasis added)</p>

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<p>Interesting. I wonder why Columbia couldn't/wouldn't supply the data -- or for that matter, the other colleges. Maybe it was just lack of interest in responding.</p>

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<p>curious...</p>

<p>keep in mind that what i described is how things work in my office, not all offices. if we are able to ascertain a student's rank, we will count it in our stats. we don't go hunting for the ranking, but if it is revealed in the application by a school official, we are going to count it if that student is admitted - counting such a student's ranking in our stats is simply truthful if it is a consideration or part of the discussion about the student in the admission decision. </p>

<p>rootbeer...</p>

<p>it is tough to get into a school where the vast majority of applicants are in the top 10% of their classes, period. but if a student is applying to such a school and they are significantly outside the top 10% of their own class, they are obviously not going to be terribly compelling within the context of the applicant pool. keep in mind that there are many schools that deny scores of valedictorians every year! if a student is applying to schools where they will be competing with the best and brightest from around the country - the top of the class from every class in the country - that student will be at a disadvantage because they are not achieving as much as the thousands of others are. but remember, we look at students both in the context of the whole applicant pool and as individuals. there are handfuls of students outside the top 10% of their high school classes that get into the most selective schools every year because we do take the time to understand everyone's individual circumstances. also, i'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but i think you are grossly overestimating things. at some most selective schools we are now seeing many - like 40-50% - of students applying without a rank (especially from private schools); students outside the top 10% of their classes at these schools are getting into A LOT of places...</p>

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<p>I went to the Boston Latin website and found some interesting data. Keep in mind that Boston Latin, practically from its inception, has always been associated with Harvard (which was founded one year later.</p>

<p>The senior class, 2006-2007 had 337 students.</p>

<p>Over three years, 2003-2006, the colleges where the greatest numbers of BLS graduates matriculated were:
UMass-Amherst 219
Boston University 113
Harvard 84
Boston College 82
Northeastern 60</p>

<p>U Chicago had 9, Yale and Princeton had 3 each, Columbia 11.
In any of the three years, Boston Latin had 28 students matriculating at Harvard and presumably a higher number of admitted students, thus pushing to the top 10% (34 out of 340 or so).</p>

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<p>AdOfficer- My D graduated from HS at 15, and was not an MIT super genius, so the expectation was a bit different than if she were 18, I think. Plus the main discussion was financially oriented-what would she need to do to qualify for new fresh scholarships with CC units. As she was young and it was $ we were talking about, it was much more logical that the parent be involved.</p>

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<p>ah, I feel slightly encouraged now....I suppose during junior year If I work extremely hard I can find my way back into the top 10% as right now im exactly at the top 11%....also for the numbers Im getting them from collegeboard.com, I guess a lot of schools just generalize for unranked students or something when reporting that number =&lt;/p>

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<p>There have always been "feeder" schools to the Ivy League and elites. Its ALWAYS a posh privileged private high school or day school. It has little to do with those kids scores and rank that they get in and more to do with their wealth, status and social class. Fact.</p>

<p>A lot of private high schools do an excellent job of window dressing their candidates for Ivy League, often by bumping grades, polishing scores, providing consultants and SAT training courses etc. </p>

<p>If you think college admissions is purely a meritocracy, you are deluded.</p>

<p>Its about privilege as often as not.</p>

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<p>friedokra, Please explain the phrase "polishing scores." These are sent from the testing agencies, not from the high schools or the students. (Otherwise, the score reports are usually not accepted/considered "official.")</p>

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<p>Friedokra:</p>

<p>Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson, Boston Latin, Bronx Science are all public schools. This may explain the high number of TJHS graduates who go on to UVA and of BLS graduates who go on to UMass-Amherst.</p>