<p>My school has a new policy this year: optional ranking</p>
<p>Well so fml, but I'm ranked ~11%. 1 off from 10 %</p>
<p>Anyways, I cant control that, But I can control whether to send my rank to college (note that I am in texas so top 10% are required to send ranks)</p>
<p>I'm wondering if I should put my rank on the transcript or to leave it out, especially for my out of state schools. I talked to my counselor and we are leaning on putting it on the transcript b/c i'm afraid schools will be suspicious that I'm not in 10% and think that my actual rank is much lower.</p>
<p>There schools I'm applying to are: UT, Rice, Northwestern(ED), Gtown, NYU, Washu
I called some and most said that they consider whatever I give them. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>School is around 570 kids. So i’m 58. Will that hurt me if I’m applying schools like Northwestern/Rice etc if I put it? Then again if I don’t…it may cause suspicion if they happen to know that ranking is optional</p>
<p>Better than not giving a rank. Sure, being ranked 58 isn’t ideal, but it’s too late to change that. Not putting it down seems silly; really, there’s nothing to hide. Top 11% isn’t bad at all, especially if your school is competitive.</p>
<p>Top 10% gets misinterpreted a lot. Maybe that’s because US News uses it as a category, so a lot of kids think it’s some kind of make or break benchmark. Truth is, for some competitive schools, top 10% won’t cut it and even top 2% is shaky; for most schools, top 10% isn’t necessary; for those in between there is no magical cutoff.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: If US News had a “% of applicants with over a 3.75 UW GPA” category, kids would stress about having a 3.749 and feel relieved with a 3.751. But it isn’t that cut and dried.</p>
<p>I’d base your decision off of a more holistic interpretation of your transcript. If you have impressive grades in rigorous courses, I’d probably opt for leaving the rank off.</p>
<p>So what would constitute as impressive grades in rigorous courses? I think its more of a question of whats better-- your rank or your transcript right? If rank is better then I should put it, if transcript is better than leave it off</p>
<p>So this year I’m taking 7 APs- expecting all A except maybe 1 B
Junior year I took 3 APs and made all As- mostly low As
Sophmore I made 3 B’s in the year, everything else A-no ap
Freshman I made 2 B’s, rest A-no ap</p>
<p>There are only like 5 people at my school who make all 95+ in their classes, most make mid-low A’s…we have 20ish valedictorians cuz at our school all A=valedictorian.</p>
<p>@sherpa, I’m not too worried about cutoff, kind most worrying is them thinking my rank is lower than it is because top 10% is auto-rank.</p>
<p>My understanding is that your high school is a public school and that it does not require an exam for admissions, and that it is not tiered in some way. If all this is so, I recommend that you not include the rank for the very selective schools on your list – such as Georgetown. Let your transcript speak for you.</p>