When is Class Rank too low? When does it hurt?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>I am ranked 5th in a class of 389 students at my high school My high school is not very competitive, and sends maybe 1-2 kids to top colleges each year, sometimes none. Do you think my class rank will hurt me in the admissions process?? Or will it just have no impact??</p>

2

<p>your rank is fine. worry about the rest of your application.</p>

3

<p>you're in the top 5%, what are you worrying about?</p>

4

<p>seriously. why are you worrying? YOU ARE THE TOP 1%</p>

5

<p>lindsay, you should work on your math ;)...</p>

6

<p>Only on CC...</p>

<p>
[quote]
lindsay, you should work on your math

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, 5/389 = 0.012853470437017994858611825192802, or 1.3%, which rounds to 1%.</p>

7

<p>I would worry. You're only in like the top 1029%.</p>

8

<p>^^ I would hope so... =p</p>

9

<p>putting down 1% when ur 1.3% is wrong</p>

10

<p>I'll say it again: only here on CC [would people think a .3% difference really means anything to adcoms].</p>

11

<p>haha .3 does not matter THAT much</p>

12

<p>What the Stanford admission officers will look at is what kind of classes you have been taking. What kind of classes have they been?</p>

13

<p>When you have a class rank like mine.</p>

14

<p>In statistics, I'm pretty sure you can't round down when considering percentages. Just for clarification purposes though, if I were ace009711 I would say top 2% to be safe, as 1.3% is not generally considered in the top 1%. An admissions officer calculating this, as I'm sure they do, might frown upon a student who is trying to boost up his or her stats to seem more impressive.</p>

<p>For a population of 389 students, top 1% would be 1-3; top 2%, 1-7; top 3%, 1-11. 5th would be ranked in the top 2% as it is not in the 1-3 range. You are not calculating the top 1.4% when determining the top 1%, but the top 1%.</p>

<p>Still, there is little difference between top 2% and top 1%. Perhaps the latter might give somewhat more of an advantage, but highly unlikely that much thereof. I think that rank is fine provided everything else is good. I've heard of many instances where rank 2 or 3 got into better school than did the valedictorian simply because no. 1 focused too much on schoolwork while not considering the "whole" outlook (e.g. ec's, community service, etc.).</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
In statistics, I'm pretty sure you can't round down when considering percentages.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You can. And it really has no practical significance in this respect.</p>

<p>
[quote]
An admissions officer calculating this, as I'm sure they do, might frown upon a student who is trying to boost up his or her stats to seem more impressive.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No. I guarantee you they won't care that much.</p>