<p>I realize nothing can be done about this, but I am stressed and needed to vent. DS's school only figures out class rank once, after Oct. 1 of senior yr. Guidance counselors only meet once with seniors individually and son's turn was today. Last yr, he was told by other students that a 4.5 was boarder-line top 10% (guidance counselor confirmed this). Son's unweighted GPA is 3.9 and weighted is 4.6, so his list was developed assuming he was safely in top 10%, a mix of reaches and safeties (hoping for merit aid at the safeties). DS will be applying to 12 schools, 10 private LACs, 1 in-state public LAC and in-state flagship. Today GC said his class was very competitive and he was border-line for top 10%. Now I feel like the in-states are the only true safeties.</p>
<p>I was thinking we might want to re-evaluate his list and add some other schools. Requests for transcripts and LORs for schools with Nov.1 deadline (EA deadline for most LACs) are due Oct. 3, the day class rank will likely come out. I also would have encouraged him to re-take SATs if I thought he was not top 10%. I find class rank frustrating and the way our county does it extremely frustrating. Am I over reacting to the importance of being in the top 10%? </p>
<p>It’s nice to be in the top 10%, but I don’t think it’s that big a deal. My philosophy is he should have two safeties he likes. Since it looks like he likes LACs why don’t you find another one that is a safety? That way if worst comes to worst he’ll have two small schools to choose from instead of one. </p>
<p>Rigor plays a role here. A student with lots of advanced coursework but a lower class rank will generally win out over a student with straight As in easy classes. </p>
<p>I share your frustration with rank, for that reason and many others, its inconsistently done and unreliable, but I would be lying if I said that no one looks at it. Some schools do. You can find out by checking the schools common data set, section C7. </p>
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Since many schools aren’t providing this info any more, I don’t see how colleges could give it much weight.
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<p>Most of the ones who claim not to rank give out a chart that in fact does rank. And if you weren’t ranking, why bother to have weighted grades. </p>
<p>As far as the OP question goes, its probably more of a question of how other things like activities, leadership, recommendations and SAT’s look. It sounds like the grades are adequate as long as there are no red flags. </p>
<p>You can always take the SAT late first semester, don’t sign up for free report sending, and see if you like your last try at upping your score. If its good, pay the fees and send it in. If its not that great, don’t send it anywhere. </p>
<p>He has several LAC admissions safeties, his current top three schools are Hamilton, Haverford and College of Wooster. Wooster is an admissions safety, but I am worried that merit aid will be less if he is outside the top 10%. He is applying to 4 reaches, 1 match and 7 admissions safeties. I’m almost sure things will work out fine, I simply wish his HS did not make things harder. It seems like they could at least be prepared to send out transcripts prior to the first week in October.</p>
<p>I believe you are over-thinking this, essentially obsessing on one detail in a way that won’t really impact admissions. The class rank is just one factor among many – by itself it is unlikely to make a huge difference in outcome. I think your son has plenty of safeties and you can expect a god outcome in the spring. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine the rank would change all that much. He’s going in with the 3.9 and the national test scores he already has and nothing really has changed since you selected the application list. If you have a good mix, as you say, of reaches and safeties that was primarily based on his stats he should yield some choices. He can only attend one college presumably he would attend any one of the 12 where his is applying.</p>
<p>GC will check off on the LOR whether OP’s son is top 1, 5, 10…%. When D2 was the Sal for her class of 160. We asked the GC whether she was going to check off 1% (we weren’t sure how she was going to do the rounding). She assured us that she would check off 1%. You may want to ask (press) the GC if she would check off 10%. Sometimes it is negotiable.</p>
<p>DS had a rigorous schedule with 9 AP’s. His high school ranked based on the unweighted GPA. He missed the top 10% however the only difference that it made was that there was 1 school that gave kids who were in the top 10% more merit money. I highly doubt that not being in the top 10% will be that big of deal. </p>
<p>I really don’t think that the schools who admit holistically care if a kid is 9th percentile or 11th percentile.</p>
<p>Some merit scholarships have strict cutoffs, but in the case of Wooster, how much money they offer would depend more on how attractive your kid is to them and how attractive they think he is to other colleges.</p>
<p>“Most of the ones who claim not to rank give out a chart that in fact does rank. And if you weren’t ranking, why bother to have weighted grades.” Hmm. That is ranking. Not sure why they would say it’s not.</p>
<p>the one’s that care will care- and the one’s that don’t, won’t. There’s just nothing you can do about it now.</p>
<p>Add a super safety to the list if you are nervous and need to sleep at night, and then stop worrying about it. If you’ve selected the right list this shouldn’t make a huge difference in the outcomes.</p>
<p>In my experience, the colleges care more about GPA and SAT or ACT score than class rank. In fact, many scholarships are awarded based on GPA and SAT/ACT scores, not class rank.</p>
<p>Is your son’s SAT or ACT score competitive for admission to these schools? What about his GPA?</p>
<p>Academic achievement
Intellectual promise
Quality of writing
Creative, original thought
Productive class discussion
Respect accorded by faculty
Disciplined work habits
Maturity
Motivation
Leadership
Integrity
Reaction to setbacks
Concern for others
Self-confidence
Initiative, independence
Overall</p>
<p>In each of those areas they are ranked as:
Below Average, Average, Good, Very Good, Excellent (top 10%), Outstanding (top 5%), Out of top few I have encountered (top 1%)</p>
<p>this is where they compare your student relative to their peers. It doesn’t matter if they have 4.0 or 3.6, what matters is if he/she is top 10 or 5%.</p>
<p>The items in post 16 are very important ones…and really, don’t relate to GPA at all. Those are other exemplars on which the GC will be ranking your student. Academic achievement is only one of those.</p>
<p>I agree with Oldfort…it is important to have a very positive counselor recommendation.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t necessarily mean your kiddo needs to be a top 10% student.</p>
<p>I will wait and see what his class rank is and then I will meet with the counselor. He is applying to schools that very few or no students in the past have applied to. I doubt counselor has even heard of Hamilton, probably not Carleton either and don’t get me started on the safeties. Most kids go to the state schools and a few every year end up at one of the academies, Cornell or a few other schools.</p>
<p>He will get an outstanding LOR from at least one teacher who writes the best letters in the school and turns down many student’s requests. When son asked him last fall, teacher said of course he was #1 on his list. He has had 3 APs with this teacher and the teacher is the adviser to his main ECs. Son was also on the “B” team for an academic contest and they went on to win the state championship.</p>
<p>DS is interested in social sciences and scored a 750 on the CR SAT (710 math). Also, I think being a boy should play in his favor. He will have 11 APs by graduation so that should help as well. I have a written report from his teacher at CTY this past summer that addresses a lot of the points in post 16, we have debated uploading it into his applications maybe we should re-visit that topic.</p>