<p>What is more important to colleges, class rank or GPA?</p>
<p>I would say GPA because some schools, like mine, don't have class rank.</p>
<p>I've heard that if your school provides class rank they don't even look at GPA/ barely do, is that true?</p>
<p>Look at the Academic Index calculator on this site and draw your own conclusions.</p>
<p>It doesn't even ask for GPA if you have rank. </p>
<p>I really hope that's not the answer.</p>
<p>depends on the college......some prioritize one over the other....helps to know this b4 applying!</p>
<p>Oh.
How do I find this info?</p>
<p>At my school our ranks are not shown. It is one of the top schools in NJ, and the differences in top GPA are very slim. If you have a solid GPA I guess you are good to go :)</p>
<p>Rank. No question. At some schools a 4.0 isn't even top 20% at others 1 person gets a 4.0 every 10 years. And schools weight differently. If a school doesn't rank, colleges use the school profile and historical data from applicants from your school to approximate your rank. Without that context, GPA is meaningless.</p>
<p>The differences at my school are very slim as well, but the ranks are shown. I don't think I could get away with having a good GPA and a worse rank unless they don't show the ranks.</p>
<p>The problem is that our weighting system is screwed up. Oh well.</p>
<p>I would think UW GPA...just because rank doesn't really tell you anything, especially in a highly competitive class where everyone is barely a hundredth of a weighted GPA (which determines rank, I believe) away from their competitors. Rank can be incredibly misleading.</p>
<p>Unweighted GPA on the other hand, after being converted to the college's scale, can be easily deciphered.</p>
<p>Then again, that's just the way I see it. Colleges may have their own take.</p>
<p>Ok first of all class rank is based on your GPA. So unless you go to some unknown high school with really competitive students, the colleges will know what kind of caliber the students at your school are and they can probably figure out your class rank just by looking at your GPA and/or vice versa.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as a really competitive high school not known to competitive colleges. For very competitive schools they see a lot of applicants from they have formulas to establish ranks as most highly competitive schools don't rank, especially of they are private schools.</p>
<p>How does this work for schools that, say, send few kids to Ivy League schools?</p>
<p>I vote rank.</p>
<p>Rodney is correct, it depends on the school. How do you know? Well info from here on CC is a good place to start. Another way to assess if GPA is more important, look at the GPA compared to SAT scores in the midrange. If you see relatively low SATs with high GPAs, you know GPA is more important.</p>
<p>The only schools I have ever seen where GPA is the factor as opposed to rank are public schools like the UCs that draw most from an area/state that has similar grading habits. Though those schools lose great private school kids and kids from publics with less grade inflation.</p>
<p>This being CC where nearly everyone wants the same 20 schools, and they are schools with the more sophisticated approach to admissions, rank is king.</p>
<p>To add to hmom's comments. IMO, SATs plus verifiable accomplishments trump rank alone for students in competitive High schools with no grade inflation applying to the very top uni's.</p>