<p>Many schools do seem to have regional admissions officers, but the further away the college, and the smaller, the less likely it seems. </p>
<p>It's still very important, I think, to be in the top decile. If not, you've got to offset that with something extraordinary elsewhere in the application. Hard to do when many of the other applicant are top 10% AND pursuing a cure for cancer. </p>
<p>I mentioned in previous post that D is just barely inside top 10%. What I didn't say was that that ranking was for weighted GPA (4.95), not unweighted (3.95). School does not rank unweighted, which should be to her advantage since she has taken a rigorous course load, mostly APs and honors. She attends a large public (magnet) school. </p>
<p>My guess is that one B this semester will drop her out of the top 10% of her class and significantly reduce her chances at the 3-4 selective schools she is considering. No pressure. I'd love to be convinced that I'm wrong ...</p>
<p>Without going into what others have said, this is totally dependent on which colleges you are applying to:</p>
<p>There are some top 30 schools who only care about unweghted GPA and rigor of curriculum; they don't even post class rank stats.</p>
<p>There are others who take the time to examine particular schools and class rank is of utmost importance along with rigor.</p>
<p>and for what it's worth, the above posters where one "B" will knock them out of the top 10%.....your school suffers from severe grade inflation....whether or not colleges will see that is another story....</p>
<p>Rodney, it may well be the case that the school suffers from "severe grade inflation". I don't know whether it does or not, but I find it interesting that you'd make this statement without knowing anything significant about the school. </p>
<p>For instance, if the kids are taking AP classes, getting high scores in class, and following that up with 4s and 5s on the AP exams, wouldn't it be logical to expect that these same kids are getting As in the class? Maybe even lots of them!</p>
<p>This is a very gray area and confusing. my son has a uw gpa of 3.3 w3.7 and may be top 10 or 15 % ( school does not rank) and his hs couselor thinks he will def ger into schools like lehigh etc. It is an independent school known for rigorous classes. He takes most rigorous and has excellent EC's. They do have good success compared to other HS in area but I am nervous. He does have great stand scores 33 ACT and subject test are strong but his GPA is low. Last year this school had a 3.9W get into harvard.</p>
<p>I don't know too much about Lehigh, so I can't respond directly to your question. But I do think that if a school "boasts" on their web site about the % of the admitted are in the top 10% (or 25%), it matters to them. It's a way they market themselves to you, and the message is "There are lots of other high achievers that go here, and you should too!"</p>
<p>"Class rank also needs to be looked at in context with the rigor of curriculum. It is not uncommon in many public high schools in this part of the Hudson Valley for strong but not particularly ambitious students to take an easier courseload in order to get higher grades. Some schools will weight AP and Honors courses to recalculate GPA in order to rank. Many rank unweighted averages, however. The result is that very often a student who ends up with a 98 average in Regents level (basic college prep) classes gets ranked ahead of a kid with a 96 or 97 average who has loaded up on Honors and AP classes. Colleges should be able to figure this out if the High School Profile is well written and transparent, but I have seen some pretty bad Profiles. I am not a fan of individual class ranking for this reason and would prefer to see students ranked by decile. The current system often penalizes students who seek an intellectual challenge and reward those who would rather apply their intellect to game the system."</p>
<p>so all colleges have access to the schools profile that a prospective applicant has come from?</p>
<p>I'm in a very unique situtation. There is a lot of grade inflation at my school because the classes are generally pretty easy, other than a few difficult classes. The only B's I've ever recieved were in advanced algebra II and advanced geometry. This gave me a 3.8 gpa for my freshman and sophomore year and dropped my rank all the way down to 50/270. I took all the hardest classes my school offers (which isn't many, only 3 AP's) and I got a 4.0 junior year and my rank moved up to 34/270. Is that really going to hurt my chances that much? I plan on applying to moderately selective schools (bryn mawr, bates, holy cross, etc.). I'm scared that colleges will look at my rank as being bad because technically based on the rigor of my school's courses in general is easy, but I chose to be in advanced math. It literally took me from being 1 to 50. These classes were not weighted, but my classes in my junior year were, but my rank didn't improve that much. I might make it into the 20's this year, but that's still barely top 10% Is this going to kill my chances?</p>
<p>I guess it would depend school to school. If you are graduating from a class of 100 then it's very easy to fall in to the 25th percentile and still be a very good student if it is a very competitive school.</p>
<p>Our H.S. will only tell my daughter that she's in the top 1%. They refuse to give ranks as they say they are constantly changing. Obviously, if there are ~500 kids, we know that she's in the top five, but she'd really like to know where she stands now, even if it does change in the future. Even as I told her GC that one school not only wanted her rank, but they wanted to know how many other kids were tied for that rank, he wouldn't give it up. :P</p>