I would appreciate the input of those with similar experience. My child is a high school sophomore. He attends a highly competitive public high school of approx 1,000 students. His weighted GPA after freshman year was north of 3.8. The school never published his class rank and I asked his guidance consular for it earlier this month. I expected him to place in the top 20% of his class, but learned he was in the 43rd percentile. The school has a lot of bright motivated students, along with some grade inflation. I am concerned about his prospects for college admissions, as a number of colleges I was considering as possible for him look for their applicants to be in the top 10-20% of their class. My question is this: Wiould it make sense to have him transfer to a less competitive high school in order to achieve a higher class rank, or will colleges not penalize my son for attending a highly competitive school?
What classes has your son taken?
If he did transfer to a less competitive school:
- He would lose his friends
- The other students may not be as academically focused
- There may not be as many AP offered
- Will the teaching caliber be as good?
Since many HSs don’t publish rank, I would not move him. His GPA and SAT/ACT are more important.
The only reason you should consider this is if you live in a state like Texas and want to go to a UT and need to be in the top 7%.
If you think you want the sort of colleges where typical admits are in the top 10-20%, then you’d need to understand much more than the stats they look for. He’d need to match holistically.
Does the hs even send rank to colleges?
And get your son involved re: college ideas, before you uproot him.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts. Of his 5 core academic classes for freshman year and this year, 3 are honors level (English, History and a Science). Made general honors every quarter so far. Plays a different sport every season, on track to make Eagle Scout. The alternative high schools are not as rigorous and have fewer offerings. He is hitting on all cylinders, successful academically, socially and athletically and doesn’t give us a bit of trouble. I believe his high school only discloses rank for the top 10. I know he’s not destined for Ivy or Nescac level schools, so I don’t think the colleges he and I have already discussed, and which he is interested in (D1 east coast Catholics), were unrealistic goals. I am loathe to move him but if a top 20% class rank is a critical consideration for selective college admissions I think we have to ponder it.
There is something about the bird in the bush. Changing schools to improve class rank is speculative. You know your son earns good grades at his current and supposedly academically superior high school. You don’t know that the other school is less difficult enough to propel your son to a higher class rank while providing the level of academic excellence you and your son seek. Finally, is the size of the bump in class rank sufficiently likely to compensate for the disruption in your son’s life and the level of familiarity and access to persons who will be expected to in known a unknown as his letters of recommendation. There are too many unknowns to support your plan.
If that is the only reason for transferring, then it is likely not worth it. The other posters have posted about the costs-benefits, but there are also many hidden costs and benefits as well. If you school is good as you say, then other people will know about it when reviewing college applications. Aka your school might have a good record of people getting into competitive schools. Also this is ONE aspect out of many, many things that colleges consider. Most schools don’t even publish class ranks, or some only do it by deciles because they don’t want students getting too competitive for this purpose. There are a great many things to consider and from the sounds of it is not worth a transfer.
“The alternative high schools are not as rigorous and have fewer offerings.” Colleges also take into account course rigor and if he’s hitting all the cylinders at the school, there seems to be little reason to transfer. You also want your kid to be prepared for college yes? Taking more advanced classes and even possibly getting college credit in some courses will be more advantageous in the long run than simply switching for a possible change in class rank. Also socially having a good support network of friends is important, and you don’t want to create unnecessary tension in your family because of a choice to switch schools.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Not to contradict anyone responded to the OP’s question, but just to use my own experience to answer OP’s “I would appreciate the input of those with similar experience.”
Due to personl beef with with the highly competitive Asian academic culture when growing up, I did not want my kid to go to the super competitive schools. I had my child tested the “Gifted and Talent” magnet school entrance exams for elementary, middle school, and high school, and she got admitted for both the elementary and high schools, but wait-pooled for the middle school. Yet, each time, we declined for the spot for admit or wait pooled. She ended up attending the less competitive home schools. Throughout her basic educations, we had friends kids who appeared to be smarter and more accomplished who attend those magnet schools, and we compare (actually it was more my daughter who did that because she did not want fall behind due to her abnormal Asian parents) them throughout all those years.
Last year was a surprise that my daughter was able to graduate at the top 5% of her class and got admitted into a 10-11% acceptance rate college while many of our friends’ kids from the magnet schools were not so lucky. Of course, there were still few kids got into the very top ones, but so many of those better kids than my daughters had to settle for the state college. We suspected that the super talents & super diligent kids in the magnet schools squeezing themselves out of the top20 of even 50 was probably the major factor in everyone’s surprise. If any of them had gone to his/her regular home school, their chance should have been better than my daughter’s. Again, this was my experience and opinion only and want to share with the OP.
You are not in Texas, correct?
To Amnotarobot, thank you for sharing, Im glad to hear of your daughters success. My situation is the reverse of yours. Our town public high school has many highly accomplished Asian students and it’s the magnet and private schools which would be less rigorous alternatives for my son. To ucbalumnus, we are from Connecticut.
Hmmm you are right that is true @amNotarobot . I have known a couple of students that go to schools like Thomas Jefferson or Maggie Walker that are public magnet high schools and are super competitive. They have written blogs about how they didn’t necessarily love their experience because of the competitive and increased pressure environment from those schools. I guess it would depend on the individual student. Definitely have a conversation with them if you haven’t already. If they are enjoying where they are at, there may be no need to change. But if they are unhappy with the environment or the school itself then it may be something worth looking into.
“I guess it would depend on the individual student.”
I agree with this.
Many suburban high schools in the US are insanely competitive. There are quite a few students who are very stressed out. I have heard stories of kids at our local public high school freaking out because they only got a 97 on a mid term exam (where we live a 97 is an A+, but only counts as a 3.7 towards GPA). I have also heard stories and seen friends of my daughters who were suffering from significant stress-related illnesses.
However, different students will take to this in different ways. Some kids seem to do very well in this environment. I have seen kids work hard, do very well and go on to highly ranked very well known top universities. I have seen some kids do very badly in a high-stress suburban high school, move to a less stressful school, and do very well and go on to a university that was a very good fit for them.
I think that on the most part college admissions officers “get it” in terms of being able to evaluate a 3.8 from a highly competitive high school versus a 3.9 from a less competitive school. The main issue should probably be: Where will your son be happy and feel that he is doing well.
My kids went to a Catholic prep school as freshman. They made the honor roll! So proud. 77% of the kids made the honor roll.
All the kids, 100%, went to college. That year 5 grads went on missions for the first year but then went to college. One guy went to play hockey before he went to college. Even those who didn’t make the honor roll went to college.
The reason for the Texas question is that the public universities there use HS class rank in lieu of HS GPA. Since that does not apply to you, moving to a different school to improve class rank is much less important for college admission purposes. You can check the Common Data Set section C7 or the collegedata.com entry for each college of interest to see whether and how much it considers class rank. But it is probably not worth changing schools if the current school is otherwise good for the student.
Also, a weighted 3.8 HS GPA is meaningless to most people outside of your school. Depending on the weighting method and the student’s selection of weighted courses, it may correspond to an unweighted HS GPA as high as 3.8 or as low as 1.8.
“He is hitting on all cylinders, successful academically, socially and athletically and doesn’t give us a bit of trouble.”
THIS. This is what I as a parent am after. This should answer your question. Don’t move him.
As a high school student, I feel like the perspective you’re coming from is going to do more hurt than harm. You stated that the colleges were looked at by you as “possible.” Don’t you think it should be his decision on where he sees fit on going? Not to say parents don’t have a say, but you’re also saying YOU want to move him out so he can be competitive for a school, specifically top 10-20%. You should probably ask him how he feels about the matter as well as he is the subject of the decision.
Thanks for everyone’s thoughtful and heartfelt responses. He will stay where he is.