<p>Is being in the top 10% of your class really good? My rank has not been updated, but the last time I checked, it was 42/739. I'm planning on applying to liberal arts schools (Vassar, Amherst, etc.), UCLA, JHU, CMU, and maybe some other private schools.</p>
<p>Do a google search for the “Common Data Set” for each college you are applying to. Go to the C10 data, which will give you the percent in top tenth of high school graduating class. For Vassar, 70% of admitted students were in the top 10% of their high school class – so, being in the top 10% is not only good, it’s almost a prerequiste. See: <a href=“Institutional Research – Vassar College”>Institutional Research – Vassar College;
<p>If your HS ranks by decile AND you are applying to a selective school, then it is basically necessary for admittance. Some of the most competitive schools have like 97% in the top decile. It’s not going to wow colleges, but its absence could be a deal breaker. It basically is like a prereq, as gibby said.</p>
<p>If you are in a Texas high school, being in the top 10% having taken the specified college-prep courses assures you of admission to all Texas public universities other then Austin (where it is top 7%). Financial aid and admission to a specific division or major may be a different story, however.</p>
<p>i live in Los Angeles, CA 
hehe</p>
<p>It also depends on the particular HS you are at. There are some HS where 15-20% of the graduating class will go to schools like the ones you are interested in, other HS where only 2-3 kids total will go to those types of colleges. Look at previous year’s graduates of your HS, and where they were admitted compared to their class ranks - some schools use tools like naviance that let you get a handle on that data, at other places you’ll need to put in more work to dig out that information.</p>
<p>for liberal arts, you don’t really need to have an amazing rank</p>