What's a Good Classrank % for HYPSM?

Applying to College
21

<p>gxing, my tongue was quite firmly in my cheek throughout that post. But thanks for the clarification.</p>

<p>Tarhunt, that's definitely interesting to hear. I don't think the school actually ranks per se, but it provides a histogram showing GPA distribution by decile as part of its information packet. The reason I like the rank-by-decile is that it gives colleges a rough indication of how competitive your GPA is relative to the school, without nitpicking about a 100th of a GPA point. As a large, high-performing public school we have a small group (maybe 30-50 per grade, out of 500) of elite honors students who are intensely competitive for top colleges. Not ranking within that group helps to ease competition between students, creating a better atmosphere at the school.
So, that's why I'm a fan of the system. Maybe my perspective is skewed a bit by my own place in, say, maybe the 8th percentile. :-)</p>

22

<p>So what's the consensus here?</p>

23

<p>valedictorian except at the top privates. then salutatorian will suffice</p>

24

<p>So how do rising grades calculate into the mix? Say, for example, you are not in the Top 5 or 10% but you have grades that rose greatly. Those early low grades will keep your rank low, but you may actually be performing the same as a person ranked higher in your later years.</p>

25

<p>You can get into Stanford if you are even just in the top 30% of your class. I know people who have done it without a hook.</p>

<p>And considering many high schools throughout California send well over 1/3 of their class to the UC's, I know you can get in without being in the top 25%. If you go to a good school, as long as you're in the top 50%, then you're alright. If you're in the top 10%, then you're definitely doing well.</p>

<p>Some people on this board are ridiculous.</p>

26

<p>But if you take out freshman grades and the whole-shebang, my GPA really sucks. We do it on a 100-point system though.</p>

27

<p>fresh/soph year brings mine down :)</p>

28

<p>etselec:</p>

<p>I was just recently on a task force for a school board in a high-performing district. I agree with you about internal competition, gamesmanship and the like. But that wasn't my primary focus.</p>

<p>We conducted interviews with approx. 50 college admissions counselors (about 30 of those from highly selective colleges), did a thorough literature review, and also talked to about 20 other high-performing high schools throughout the country. In the end, the vote was unanimous and instantaneous. We voted to end reporting of class rank, in any form, to colleges.</p>

<p>What we found is that the most elite colleges appear to do a poor job of distinguishing between very high class rank at average or below-average performing high schools, and decent but not great class rank at very high-performing high schools. In one of the high schools in our district, 7% of the kids were NMSFs. Our kids were competing for high class rank against other, very talented kids, while students in neighboring districts of similar talent and work ethic were becoming valedictorians.</p>

<p>If the elite schools were compensating adequately for these issues, I would have been happy to retain class rank reporting, with some changes in the calculation to make the playing field more even. But time and again, we found, both from sound studies and anecdotal evidence, that they are not.</p>

<p>Showing grade distribution is just another way of reporting class rank. I really don't understand why some high schools think it is different.</p>

29

<p>
[quote]
Showing grade distribution is just another way of reporting class rank. I really don't understand why some high schools think it is different.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's not true. Colleges can then look to see how many kids got what kind of grades.</p>

30

<p>gxing:</p>

<p>Perhaps you could give me an example. In the course of our research, we looked at a number of approaches various high schools use. The most common was a line graph showing GPA and class-rank percentile on the x/y axes. We also saw bell curves, bar charts, histograms, and the like. In every case, the graphs gave colleges the ability to impute class rank percentage.</p>

<p>We did see some good examples of tables that that demonstrated that, say, the top 1.3% finished with a GPA of 4.6 or higher, the next 5% with a GPA of 4.4 or higher, and the next 12% with a 4.0 or higher, etc. That kind of approach means that the college doesn't have to report non-top-10% students in US News rankings, and makes it a bit more difficult to know exactly who finished in the top 10% and who didn't. </p>

<p>But we still determined that it gave colleges too much information that we felt they would not use well.</p>

<p>Take a look at my link, above, for a better, more rigorous take on the effect of class rank on elite college admissions.</p>

31

<p>Each of the admissions staff reads about 1000 applications in the months Nov - Jan. Imagine their frustration if the information about the student's standing in the class is not included. They have to spend more time looking for and analyzing the other academic data. That is why they love to see class rank reported. If you have a high rank, you want your high school to report it.
Another point, even if the class rank is not on the transcript, recommendation forms often reveal that information.</p>

32

<p>^Okay yeah that may be easier for admissions staff but is it fair for those of us at extremely competitive schools? Obviously not as Tarhunt has made an excellent arguement for</p>

33

<p>CollegeBound2007</p>

<p>As unwritten says, we really weren't very interested in making things easier for admissions officers. In fact, we were interested in cutting down on the amount of shorthand they could do (like placing class rank on a rubric and using it to help assign a number). That appears to be the kind of approach to admissions that was hurting our kids.</p>

<p>As for high rank, I was very concerned that we might be hurting the chances of kids who have very high rank. We were assured by every elite college we talked to that this was not the case. They already, in many instances, have 50% or more of their apps coming from high schools that don't report rank, including (if you can believe NACAC numbers and I have some reservations on that) about 80% to 90% of non-parochial private schools.</p>

<p>As one admissions officer put it to me, "If I open a transcript and see a slew or weighted, difficult courses with all As, I know this kid is at or near the top of the class."</p>

<p>Recommendations forms cannot reveal that information if the information is not available.</p>

34

<p>We do your ranking/number of students</p>

<p>Am I screwed?</p>

<p>It says like top quartile, but I mean the adcom can just divide and multiple by 100</p>

35

<p>Tarhunt, I still think that Adcoms look for some number to base their decision on because of the sheer number of applications they have to read. When you say you weren't interested in making things easier for them, we don't know if it is really beneficial for particular student to take that approach.<br>
Without a rank mentioned, admission counselor will most likely stare at the grades for a few minutes. It'd be like
Applicant 241: A A+ A- B A A
Applicant 532: A+ A+ C B A A+
etc..
Who knows what impression this creates? Will it hurt or help a particular student? Those are the important questions.
If a student does have a good class rank, he/she will benefit by its being mentioned. Recommenders often know where the student approximately ranks in the class even if there is no official rank. They can mention it. Often they have to tick the top 2%, 5%, 10% etc boxes.</p>

36

<p>The existence of special programs in some school systems can have bizarre effects on class rank.</p>

<p>Consider these two schools from my county:</p>

<p>School A is the host school of a selective academic magnet program that draws from the entire county. One-fourth of the population at this school (100 kids per grade) is in the elite magnet; the other three-fourths of the students come from the local district that the school serves.</p>

<p>School B is another high school in the same county. It hosts no special programs. Each year, several of the top students living in the School B district will be accepted into School A's magnet program and therefore will not attend School B. Other kids who could have been accepted into the magnet will choose not to go there and will actually attend School B.</p>

<p>The school system's decision to create a magnet and locate it in School A has profound effects on the class rank situation at both schools. For the top students in the School B district who choose to stay at School B, the existence of the magnet at another school is an advantage because it draws away some of the competition and enhances their own class rank. On the other hand, the class ranks of the students who attend the magnet program at School A are lower than they would have been if these students had stayed at their district schools (each of the 100 kids in the magnet at School A would almost certainly have been among the top 10 students in the class at their home schools, but by choosing the magnet, 90 of the 100 have ensured that they will not be in the top 10). And heaven help the students in the regular population at School A. They have little chance of even being in the top quarter of their class.</p>

<p>Our school system does not rank, but the adcoms can figure out approximate ranks anyway. One has to wonder, though, whether they are aware of the subtleties of the situation.</p>

37

<p>CollegeBound2007:</p>

<p>First off, congratulations on being able to put yourself in another's shoes and try to figure out what that person would want. In my experience, empathy is a rather rare thing and a very useful skill.</p>

<p>Now, let me try to go at this another way. </p>

<p>First, NACAC estimates that only 10% to 20% of non-parochial private schools report class rank. As you know, these are the schools that generally send very high percentages to four-year colleges and an outsized number of students to elite colleges. Guidance counselors at these places generally spend much less time trying to help students graduate and much more time helping them get into colleges of their choice.</p>

<p>So, to me, the first question I have to ask myself is this: "If the private schools rarely report class rank because they think it hurts kids' admissions chances, and if the public schools in my area have demographics similar to those of private schools, why are we reporting class rank? Are we right and they wrong?"</p>

<p>Well, of course it's possible that reporting is right and non-reporting is wrong, but it's unlikely. When I see a low-probability practice like that, it instantly makes me curious.</p>

<p>I talked to guidance counselors at a few elite private schools in the course of this study, and there didn't seem to be any doubt in their minds that non-reporting of class rank is in their students' best interests.</p>

<p>I believe you are partially right about the life of an admissions officer. Very few applications really stand out. Most of them become part of the blur. That's why the vast majority of admissions departments use some sort of rubric to simplify. In many cases, GPAs are recalculated based on this rubric. In some cases, factors are used to modify GPAs, as well.</p>

<p>Overall, the idea is to use the rubric to try to normalize data on criteria of the school's choice, to get more of an apples to apples comparison, knowing that such a thing is impossible to do perfectly. Unfortunately, most colleges do a terrible job of normalizing data on the class rank issue. Some don't normalize on purpose, using class rank as a sort of de facto affirmative action policy. Others are just looking for a reason to reject one of many fabulous applicants, and non-stellar class rank makes a decent reason.</p>

<p>Now, if you're in my public school district, kids toward the 50th percentile in class rank would be very competitive for valedictorian at an average high school. But our research (and the link above to Paul Attewell's research) convinced us, overwhelmingly, that elite colleges rarely give enough weight to the quality of the competition when entering class rank on their rubrics.</p>

<p>Anecdotally, removing class rank from transcripts has increased admissions rates to elite colleges from high-performing public school districts throughout the country. When an admissions officer cannot simply enter a number on a rubric, he/she must stop, look at the grades and the courses taken, compare these grades and courses taken against what is known about the high school, and make a value judgment about the academic promise of a given kid ... not a misleading class rank number.</p>