<p>Yeah, I'll agree on the colleges and using the val/sal #"s to their advantage - but hey, just like any outside scholarship you sure want to give it your best shot if you're a good candidate!</p>
<p>And on another post, I got grief for not supporting a system of absolute #1. At a certain point, just like NM, the top 1% is the top 1% and should be considered. My K's had seven and five vals respectfully and nobody felt this way because at a certain you're spliting hairs among very bright kids. Then it becomes somebody's opinion of what's valuable. Like SAT carries more weight than ACT. </p>
<p>I feel for your situation because you don't deserve the stress. In our situation we had all the kids and their parents over for BBQ and all congratulated each other on college choices. Everybody was/still is good friends even at their different colleges. Yup, the way we do it sucks, don't it?</p>
<p>And by the way both mine would have been #1's in the other system. So it's not like I couldn't deal. I just don't think it's right to turn a group of exceptional kids into cutthroat crap. It is hard enough being a bright kid in today's real world of HS students. Why isolate them more?</p>
<p>My son's hs did unweighted ranking - worst of both worlds. It was very frustrating. His GC included information in her rec about the ranking not reflecting his true standing - so I expect that the GC will be willing to include a note about the 2nd highest gpa. Good luck!</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>...tomorrow is another day and we move on!<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>You are wise to move on. Just ask Blair Hornstine.</p>
<p>"...most kids who get into HYPS from average schools are numbers 1 or 2."</p>
<p>Not if the reason they are #1 or 2 is because of a silly system. A kid who is first in the class but took no honors or AP classes isn't getting into HYPS.</p>
<p>Years ago, a parent was very concerned because his kid wanted to take 2 courses at the local U.--the flagship in their state. His high school would allow him to do this, but it would NOT treat them as honors or APs in calculating class rank. So, just taking the courses meant the boy would drop from first in his class to about fifth if he took them and got As and the others at the top of the class took 2 APs instead and got As in them. I told him he was nuts if he thought that would stop HYPS from accepting his son. The fact that the kid CHOSE to take the classes KNOWING it would cost him being val or sal would convince the colleges that the kid was genuinely interested in learning, and wasn't a grade grubber. </p>
<p>The college counselor explained in the rec that the 2 college courses-which were tough ones--weren't eligible to be weighted and that class rank was based on weighted gpa. He got accepted at a school in the HYPS group early. </p>
<p>So, yes, you usually have to be at the top of the class at an average high school to get into HYPS, at least if you are a "hookless" applicant. But, if the reason you are not val is that you took intense introductory Arabic at state U and got an A while a classmate took honors band, a top college isn't going to choose the kid with the higher rank who took the easier course.</p>
<p>I've been through this with my own school district. </p>
<p>The fact is, designating a val/sal by GPA is like holding a cross-country race in which each contestant runs a different course, of different lengths, over different terrains, and then gets timed to the thousandth of a second to see who "wins."</p>
<p>Depending on the school district, there are all sorts of games that can determine who is the val that have NOTHING to do with actual performance:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Taking unweighted courses pass/fail</p></li>
<li><p>Going to the right middle school and frontloading GPA with weighted courses taken in middle school, making it impossible for anyone who didn't go to the right middle school to be val</p></li>
<li><p>Taking only the easiest weighted courses, or the ones that are in your area of strength, while avoiding those you aren't so good at</p></li>
<li><p>Taking a minimal course load of all weighted courses, avoiding taking any course that's unweighted</p></li>
<li><p>Taking unweighted courses using distance learning to keep them off your transcript</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I'm sure there are other games I don't know, but those should do for a start.</p>
<p>To me, the val race is no real race at all, but mostly a course in gamesmanship.</p>
<p>I am thankful that our competitive suburban public school did away with class rank altogether.</p>
<p>Colleges are informed of decile rank.</p>
<p>ADad:</p>
<p>Oh man. Decile rank is, to my mind, the very worst way of reporting rank. I was on a task force in my school district that got rid of class rank, and we rejected decile reporting outright.</p>
<p>Sorry it's gone that way for you.</p>
<p>I have to agree with tarhunt. My d with her dozens of APs/Honors/GT classes was outranked by at least 25 kids who had not bothered to take one honors or AP class. I'm very peevish about the whole thing (as everyone at CC knows very well...lol!)</p>
<p>fault the college; not the hs.</p>
<p>
abasket~</p>
<p>First of all, {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}} to you and your D. IMHO you have EVERY right to feel "cheated" on her behalf. What happened in your D's case DOES appear to be unfair and no amount of looking at the glass differently will change that. </p>
<p>You are right, also, in that your D may fare a bit less well, money-wise, at certain schools because of this ranking. My own son had an almost identical thing happen two years ago (he ended up ranked 4th when he had the highest weighted GPA), and it <em>DID</em> cost him money at UMiami where he received a 3/4 tuition scholarship instead of a full tuition one (he chose a different school anyway, but the point is that the ranking was the <em>ONLY</em> thing that cost him that extra money--we were told this by the school). </p>
<p>As an illustration, the girl who was ranked directly above my son in the # 3 spot had a 25 ACT score to his 34 and had not taken classes with NEARLY the difficulty level that he had, yet she ended up ranked above him because he received one B+ in an Honors class in his freshman year.</p>
<p>I fully understand that your being (rightfully) aggravated about this situation does not in any way diminish the pride you have for your D or for her wonderful achievements. Though she may be cost some things due to her #3 ranking, she won't be cost much. I'm sure that many wonderful schools will recognize your D's accomplishments and reward her well. Unfortunately there is probably no choice but to accept this situation, but it sure helps to vent about it! ;) You absolutely have my sympathy!</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>Decile ranking has worked quite well for us for about five years now. We have weighted honors and AP courses, so the best students fill up the top decile. </p>
<p>To my knowledge, we have little of the apparently inevitable injustices, bickering, arbitrariness, and gaming that are associated with exact rank and are frequent topics of conversation on CC. Our top decile students have been accepted each of the past five years at top colleges. </p>
<p>So, as far as I know, our system is working well for us. No need for sympathy.</p>
<p>I have a very different "take" on ranking. Our eldest two went to a poverty-stricken rural high school that used the simple formula GPA = Rank.</p>
<p>Students who chose the Honors and few AP's offered there did not get any points or weight, so did not rank as high as the students who took a more mundane palette of classes. I began to deemphasize rank in our home when I saw some bright classmates drop out of Honors for Regular classes, or decline taking AP's. Of course, they were angling for higher GPA's when the Val and Sal designations loomed on the horizon.</p>
<pre><code>One kid who ranked 9/750 also got twin 800's on his SAT-I's (old scale) and sailed on to Harvard -- talk of the town!
</code></pre>
<p>My kid ranked 11/750, got an 800 V, an 800 SAT-II Writing, and went to Amherst.</p>
<p>Around sophomore year, I let my kids know we did NOT CARE about the ranking, or whether they ever became Vals/Sals, once we understood the school policy. Instead, we urged them to take the most challenging classes for the sake of learning. </p>
<p>We also expressed that there were other kids in the community who would work hard to become Vals/Sals and that would make their school a better place. It was a goal accessible to everyone in the school. </p>
<p>The high-ranked "Top Ten" were a big source of pride in the town, with names published in the paper and so on. This gave other kids an edge and helped them get to some of their dream colleges, too. Many were first-gen students and needed that boost. My kid did not need another feather in his cap. </p>
<p>It takes a village, and sometimes we parents need to communicate some collective appreciation to our children as well as individual achievement.</p>
<p>I thought in that particular community, the school was wise to create a different playing field, and reward a different group of students to shoot for Val/Sal.</p>
<p>I think that if the OP hadn't lost money over this 3rd place business, she wouldn't have felt as hurt when the news came out. Losing money over this is obnoxious.</p>
<p>The difficulty of the courses should be considered in rankings. Taking all Honors classes and no AP's and getting straight A's doesn't make you smarter than someone who takes 10 AP classes and gets B's in all of them. The weighting is not always correct if you weight all AP's in one bracket and all Honors courses in another.</p>
<p>One of my son's friend deliberately sabotaged her last grading period so she would not be val/sal and have to give a speech at graduation.</p>
<p>There are far more important things to get upset about than this IMHO. Years down the road few will remember and fewer will care.</p>
<p>Edit-Oops, I didn't know about the lost scholarship $'s. Yes, that does make it a more important issue if that was a college near the top of her list.</p>
<p>"Though in this case "honors band" may be a joke (I don't know), it's there to protect the students who challenge themselves."</p>
<p>very true. It does not do that all the time, but it helps. The band cost my son # 1 spot.</p>
<p>And abasket, you have no idea how hard the kids have to work if they are in band. During football and marching band competition season it not uncommon that some weeks they spend more than 40 hours for a 7 min. show. We actually did calculate the # of hours (applications ask for it). For the fall semester it averaged 23 hrs/wk.</p>
<p>At our school weighted GPA is used, and only over a certain number of recent semesters (4 or 5?). It is virtually impossible to get to the heights needed without many honors and APs. The top GPAs hover around 4.8. My s had a 4.5+ and didn't come close. Even so, there's things that can be done to take advantage of the system- honors classes in "fluffy" sciences instead of core (environmental, ecology, astronomy instead of chemistry, physics), same with AP (AP music, art, psych, stat instead of history, calculus). Not to say the former shouldn't be just as challenging- I guess it depends on the school. Basically, picking the right teachers. Even in non-weighted classes, there's teachers who give you an A for breathing and those who make the students work. In the long run, you're better off improving yourself and your preparation for college than playing a numbers game.</p>
<p>If anything, it's wrong of colleges to base money on such an arbitrary figure. Not the high school's fault. Life isn't fair. Got to keep plugging along.</p>
<p>Simba, unfortunately that is not the case at all schools. There is really no difference between regular band and honors band at our school - usually just freshmen are in regular, although some "favorites" do get into honors as freshmen. Our school goes further in that they have Honors Jazz Band, Honors Jazz Choir and Honors Choir. These are easy A's and there are many kids who "load" up on these classes and as a result have a great GPA. It is very frustrating that they include these classes in the calculation of GPA for ranking purposes because they are very easy classes. </p>
<p>abasket - I am sad for your daughter. The same thing happened to my son last year. Yes you do get over it and yes, it is very frustrating about the lost scholarships. All of the local scholarships seemed to go to #1 and #2. The only good thing that came out of it was that the Salutatorian's speech was not very good (very boring and disjointed and all about her), so I was relieved it was not my son up there giving the speech.</p>