<p>My son's school weights grades - All classes are worth a 4.0 and this is how class rank is calculated. Points off for a "-" but no points for a "+". He's taken the most difficult classes (honors and AP when they're available) and his GPA is 3.83. However, at his tiny private school his class rank is only 23/85. He scored a total of 2320 on the SAT's.</p>
<p>The school counselors here (Wyoming) are not very sophisticated and are not giving us the answers we need. How are the more selective schools going to look at his academics given this screwy class rank system? Is there anything we can do to get schools to take a look at him or will he just get passed over as a matter of course because of his class rank?</p>
<p>Private school with unsophisticated GCs? How very odd.</p>
<p>Normally it would be up the the GC to “explain” the school methodology to colleges. IMHO it would appear self-serving for your S to address this in his college applications. So this may be one of those situations where you trust that your S’s GPA and test scores will be sufficient to win him admission to competitive universities. Good luck.</p>
<p>It’s a little parochial school in a little town and although the counselors know certain schools very well, our school has never sent a graduate to most of the schools he’s interested in (California) and they don’t really give us any feedback regarding what his chances are. In addition, they’ve been asked by students and parents to either not report rankings or use a weighted GPA, but the school doesn’t seem to be inclined to change their policy. They’re a pretty “laid back” group!</p>
<p>Is it a long shot for him? We’ve only got one four-year school in this state, so out-of-state is really our only option.</p>
<p>Grant- we are in a similar position- even though we are in a larger town. The toughest private school in our area, but because the students are so competitive, a 3.8 puts you in the lower 50th percentile. The gc’s spend most of their time helping low income students get scholarships (and do a good job), and have about a dozen schools where grads are pretty much guaranteed acceptance. But, outside of that dozen, they have no connections at all . They finally hired a new, more connected gc this year, after a couple of years of parent complaints, and we hope she can help.
Stuff I wish I had known when choosing a high school.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, my daughter’s school is highly competitive. Weighting is given to all AP and Honors classes. The top kids in her class have taken numerous AP and Honors classes online in order to get the very significant weighting. ALL kids taking AP and Honors classes get the additional “points” added to the GPA NO MATTER WHAT GRADE THE STUDENT GOT IN THE CLASS. So the wealthy kids pay $750 for each online class. The less wealthy kids cannot afford this. The top kids at the school are all from very wealthy families. There are students who have never gotten less than an A throughout all of high school, but do not rank in the top 10% of upcoming graduates. The #1 student has quite a few A-'s and B+'s but has countered this with more online classes. Currently the top 48/396 students have a 4.0 or higher.</p>
<p>^^^That’s crazy. My son goes to a prep school and they do not allow any outside grades to count towards the gpa. Colleges don’t allow this either. I am surprised your school does this.</p>
<p>Your son would get into most colleges just based on his scores alone. I don’t think the top schools will overlook rank, but many will be fine with it.</p>
<p>My son has a similar situation. He attends a small private school and concurrently attends our local math & science center. He has an unweighted GPA of 3.89 (they don’t weight grades at either school), which places him at 17 in a class of 90 at his home school - barely top 20%. The private school is a good one and 98% of the students attend college, but my son’s rank really doesn’t reflect the fact that more than half of his classes have been honors and/or AP classes, unlike most of his classmates’. </p>
<p>His SATs are fairly good and I’m sure for most schools, the admissions office would review the school profiles, course rigor, etc, and he would be fine. But his number one choice happens to be a small engineering school that puts a LOT of emphasis on class rank. Is this likely to be a big problem for him? Any suggestions to improve his odds?</p>