<p>Remember, sometimes the difference between #1 and #10 is not the occasional B as a result of disinterest or slacking off, but the basic system of determining gpa. My son was in the top handful of students, took honors and AP classes whenever available and never got a B. But I think our school's liklihood of eliminating rankings is probably a good thing. Ranking discouraged many from trying non-weighted courses, and those who did take a fine art class, a second foreign language, a tech ed course, or even a creative writing class were punished with a diminished gpa. In our school, you are numerically better off to take a study hall...which is just wrong! Some schools don't count non-academic classes, some don't give added weight to honors classes, etc. There is just no consistancy. The real shame of it is that substantial amounts of money are rewarded for val and sal, even though those exact positions may not mean a whole lot.</p>