<p>if i've taken the hardest courseload and gotten a B or two almost every semester, but i'm in the top 2-3% of my class, does that reflect well on the difficulty of my school or reflect poorly on me?</p>
<p>i know school scattergrams provide a more accurate answer, and to complicate things, my school doesn't ACTUALLY rank, though i'm sure my counselor will make it clear. but in GENERAL, which matters more? can a few B's still really hurt you at top schools if you're at the top of your class/no one has a perfect gpa?</p>
<p>They are worth the same. A former chief admissions officer at Dartmouth that I spoke to told me the ratio of "points" admissions gives to different aspects of an application. GPA and rank are equally the most important. When they look at GPA, they do consider the difficulty of courses.</p>
<p>And what are you worried about? Top 2-3% of your class is beyond awesome.</p>
<p>haha, i'm not overly worried or fishing for compliments. it's just that on CC, people are always freaking out about getting a few A minuses or one B, or that story about how someone will ask an admissions official, "what's better, getting B's in honors classes or A's in regular classes?" and the official "smiles and shakes his head sadly" and says, "A's in AP classes." so i was just wondering what kind of expectations colleges have when also considering the difficulty of a high school/your performance in comparison to your classmates.</p>
<p>Rank is what matters. Many schools have dozens of 4.0s where a 4.0 clearly doesn't mean much. It's just common sense. Sorry Ealgian but I think you misunderstood. Rank is the only thing that puts grades into context. Another former Dartmouth adcom wrote what is probably the college book that has sold the most copies in history and explains how when schools don't rank they have formulas to figure out a rank.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, i agree. Class rank puts your gpa into context. That way, colleges won't automatically assume that applicant A is better than applicant B because they have a 4.0 whereas applicant B only has a 3.5 (even thought app. B might have went to a much more challenging school).</p>
<p>When admissions looks at grades, they have profiles of the school that can be referenced. Chances are, someone from your school has applied previously, so they have that to reference also. BTW, rank is based upon GPA. So... they all go together.</p>
<p>actually, if you go to collegeboard, most of the top schools list class rank as something "considered, but not as important as others (GPA, SAT, etc.)</p>
<p>They put class rank next to region, nationality, etc. which in other words mean that GPA is more important. </p>
<p>And for people who go to my kind of school, rank isn't really fair because the top 5 are huge cheaters...</p>