<p>My D is a senior at a small private high school that is one of the best in our area and fairly well-known to colleges, but is not a nationally renowned ivy-feeder school. The school tries (successfully) to avoid excessive competition among the top students by not announcing class rank and not providing a rank to colleges. The counselor letter checks the box for 'we do not rank' and then provides the high school profile. But the HS profile does not provide too many quantitative details, especially in the top range. The most you can tell is that about 20% of the class gets a weighted GPA above 4.0</p>
<p>My D has a weighted GPA of about 4.4 which, she thinks, is one of the highest (if not the highest) in the school. This impression is supported by historical data on Naviance scattergrams, where she consistently occupies the top right corner. </p>
<p>While the HS transcript will speak for itself, I am a bit concerned whether my D will be disadvantaged by the school policy of not ranking students. I am not sure how colleges will even know that she is in the top decile of the class. I have heard that it is very important to make the top 10% cutoff in order to be considered for top super-selective colleges.</p>
<p>How much of an issue is this going to be? Am I being overly anxious?</p>
<p>There are a lot of private schools that don’t rank students. D’s school (albeit 6 years ago) didn’t and we never encountered a problem. Have any of the schools that you’ve called indicated that it’s a problem?</p>
<p>our school also doesn’t rank nor provide any decile info. The counselor says he leaves that whole section blank. What they do provide is a grade distribution of Junior year classes. This is good up to a point, but all the English electives are lumped into one row, putting the tough graders mixed in with the easier graders. It also doesn’t differentiate in the grade distribution which of those scores were for the Juniors vs Seniors or Sophomores, nor does it show distributions for classes from other calendar years.</p>
<p>Where I have recently become anxious is in scholarships. For example, my company gives a scholarship and the criteria for the first round is only based on “exact class rank” and test scores. The counselor says they deal with this type of situation all the time and will work with the organization. I wonder how that works for large institutions to have schools coming to them asking to be considered as a special case. Or maybe they secretly tell the rank at that point but don’t want to let on to the families that this is what they are doing.</p>
<p>But back to vp’s D… I think she probably isn’t getting the recognition in this system that she would in a more transparent school, but I don’t think the lack of data will work against her, as she will stand out as in the top group, whatever that group might be.</p>
<p>There has been quite a bit of discussion about class rank here on CC. Here is what I’ve taken away from it:</p>
<p>Being in the top decile matters only if your school ranks its students, because the data that colleges publish showing that 90% of their students were in the top 10% in high school, or whatever, reflects only schools that rank. That may actually make it easier, not harder, for your daughter to get into a top school, because if she’s the kind of student a college wants but happens to be just outside the top 10%, this will not affect their admissions data negatively. Some top schools get half or more of their students from high schools that don’t rank.</p>
<p>Furthermore, typically only the best high schools refuse to provide rank. This sends a message to colleges that all of their students are good, not just the ones with sky-high GPAs. The profile that the high school provides to colleges should further reinforce this message.</p>
<p>So, in short, you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>Would the counselor be willing to put in the counselor’s recommendation that your daughter has one of the top gpa’s in the school? I think if she is one of the very top students in her class the counselor should be willing to say so.</p>
<p>The HS our D attends will not rank nor provide much additional information. It doesn’t seem to stop the top schools from recruiting the graduates. And when I look at college websites, I’m quite amazed at the significant percentage of students that come from ‘non-ranked’ schools.</p>
<p>My child’s school doesn’t rank either. Many good schools and many small schools don’t. If you prowl through the Common Data Set for some colleges, you will see that quite a few kids from schools that don’t rank go to fine colleges. So, don’t worry about that 10% figure - it is not crucial at all.</p>
<p>If the OP’s daughter is applying to colleges that regularly draw at least a few applications from her school, the responsible admissions person is likely to notice if her weighted GPA equals or exceeds the highest he or she ususally sees from that school. In addition, I would be shocked beyond words if, in a small private school – and notwithstanding its anticompetitive philosophy – the counselor’s letter did not make absolutely, positively clear “this is [one of] our top student[s]”.</p>
<p>You have nothing to worry about. Most of the best small private schools (including where I work) do not rank. We also have no grade inflation. Never have had anyone with a 4.0 GPA here. All of our students are very well qualified and the top colleges they apply to know it. You would be surprised to see the stats of our students who get accpeted to top schools (ie gpa’s that you would say there is no way they would be accepted). </p>
<p>bottom line - the colleges are well aware of the rigor at various private schools and will tank this into account, class rank or no class rank</p>
<p>If your D is at the tippy top of her class, in a competitive school such as yours, I strongly suspect that this will be made crystal clear through language used by the GC and teachers in the recommendations. If your school is known to the colleges at all, they likely have a very good idea of what the GPA means in the context of her school, regardless of the profile. However, I think it is good to at least familiarize yourself with the historical relationships of your HS and the colleges. That’s not to say a student can’t be successful from a school that is not a traditional feeder, of course.</p>
<p>Edit: Didn’t see that JHS said the same thing earlier. I agree.</p>
<p>Roshke is correct. Your GC will tell the AdComm over the phone if your student is #1 or #2. For some colleges it makes a difference and they will ask. For others, they will “infer” a rank based on GPA and class size, as well as information they can learn from the h.s. profile.</p>
<p>Indeed, LORs from teachers and GC can make things crystal clear. If the LOR from the AP Calc teacher says something like, “I’ve been a high school math teacher for 18 years, and XYZ ranks as the top (or one of the top five) students I’ve taught.” then that’s a very powerful statement. Or, “Even before graduating with the class of 2010, XYZ represents the best that the public school system in Large State can produce.”</p>