Why are colleges using class rank in admissions?

Parents Forum
61

<p>While I under stand rankings, weighted and unweighted gpas being used in the admissions process due to the fact that the admissions process is more numbers driven. However, for many selective schools ,with the exception of stanford where over 80% of students presented class rank there are not an over whelming majority of schools/students submitting rankings.</p>

<p>I fyou would look at the common data set for the Ivies and elite LAC’s the numbers are pretty close as to ranked and non ranked students.</p>

<p>Yale provides no information what so ever regarding what percentage of students provided ranking. It just states 95 in the top 10% of the class and 95% in the top 25%
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>At Dartmouth 53.5% of the admitted students submitted ranks
<a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Eoir/pdfs/cds_200405_02.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/cds_200405_02.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>At Cornell
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: _52%</p>

<p><a href="http://dpb.cornell.edu/irp/pdf/CDS/cds_200405.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://dpb.cornell.edu/irp/pdf/CDS/cds_200405.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>At MIT
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/cds2005.html#c%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2005/cds2005.html#c&lt;/a>
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: 58</p>

<p>At Princeton:
<a href="http://registrar1.princeton.edu/data/common/cds2004.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://registrar1.princeton.edu/data/common/cds2004.pdf&lt;/a>
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: 39%</p>

<p>At Stanford
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission&lt;/a>
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: 81.4%</p>

<p>UC Berkley
C10. Percent of all degree-seeking, first-time, first-year (freshman) students who had high school class rank within
each of the following ranges (report information for those students from whom you collected high school rank
information).
Percent in top tenth of high school graduating class 98% estimate
Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 100% estimate
Percent in top half of high school graduating class 100% estimate
Percent in bottom half of high school graduating class 0%
Percent in bottom quarter of high school graduating class 0%
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: na</p>

<p>Amherst
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank
47%:</p>

<p>Swarthmore
<a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/cds2004.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/cds2004.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank
53%</p>

<p>Williams
<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/2004-05cds.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/2004-05cds.pdf&lt;/a>
Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank
35%</p>

<p>I would not expect a school like RISD, to weigh heavily on ranking becasue I woudl guess that a large number of students do submit portfolios and would be assessed differently.</p>

62

<p>Sybbie, RISD doesn't take rank into consideration as far as I know. Certainly, it isn't every school where this comes up, and it may not even be the majority of schools; however, it does come up more than I would like either in admissions or in awarding some scholarships.</p>

63

<p>taxguy, I feel your pain. I have the same objection to scholarships with defined SAT score minimums of 1500. IMHO, it should be illegal to require SAT scores over 1470, for example.;) I do really hate the numbers game but I do admit that I don't have a quick or efficient fix. I just hope for our kids' sake (the kids without perfect numbers) that the schools they apply to will try to read the whole app before tossing them into the round file. We have tried to make a list of schools where D's "numbers" place her in good to great stead and have been routinely told that we are shooting too low. That's O.K. with us. They COULD be riding shetlands. ;)</p>

64

<p>Just aim high enough that Mudgie will respect her peers and her peers will give her a run for her money...</p>

65

<p>"They COULD be riding shetlands." LOL Curmudgeon</p>

66

<p>It's just silly to think there is any school that doesn't pay attention to rank. I love looking at the profiles of schools that claim not to rank, they tell you exactly where every kid is!! In A is for Admission, the author even tells that they have a system for figuring out where kids rank at known schools that don't rank!! Why is anyone offended by this, context is important.</p>

67

<p>Taxguy, I agree with you. Our hs has the same situation, as it is a competitive hs. Our school, does not rank. You can be in the top 10% at one hs and not come close in another. This is why the sats and acts are so important. </p>

<p>I would ask if the top 10% policy is a hard and fast rule, or if there are other ways for admission into honors- sometimes you can apply after freshman year. At some schools you can apply and they look at other factors: gpa, sat scores, even ecs.</p>

68

<p>Northeastmom, most schools allow transfers after freshmen year. It still is an annoying policy. Even worse, I found some schools that offer scholarships if you are in the top 10% of your class. This is also annoying. I just have to ignore this nonsense. I just don't understand the rationale for this. I can see scholarships based on SATs for colleges to get their numbers up. I can see scholarships based on portfolio or audition quality. I can also see scholarships based on GPA minimums. However, to have a "hard and fast rule" that a person must be in the top 10% of their class is absurd.</p>

69

<p>Taxguy I could not agree more, and yes it is very aggrevating. I have actually ruled out some large universities for my son because he would not be benifiting from the perks in an honors program. I feel that I am paying huge tuition bills and that I also want my son to be in a class of 20, and not in a class of 200+. I want my son to experience the smaller teacher:student ratio just as much as the kid that made it into honors. I want him to participate in lively discussions rather than perhaps sit more passively in a larger lecture hall. If he cannot get the smaller college experience within the big university too, there are other colleges that will provide that. I know you have had a harder time finding a good fit for your D, so you have less choice, and do understand the aggrevation. It is definitely aggrevating.</p>

70

<p>Xiggi, going to a high school with great placement at ivies and such is not with its downsides. If 20% of the school got into ivies, that probably means another 20% or more applied and did not. Getting into an ivy from such a school may be harder than coming from a school with lessy or no ivy league bound kids.</p>

<p>This happens at my school some years, not with the ivies but with UCLA.
It's quite ironic that you are penalized for going to a good school all because of the notion of geographic diversity and class rank. </p>

<p>taxguy, even GPA minimums (though it depends on how high they are) are arbitrary, due to grade inflation. </p>

<p>The only uniform measures (that come to mind) are standardized scores, and examining how many rigorous classes a student took, out of all the ones possible. Even in the latter, how are you to compare a kid who took 9 APs with another who took 3, because that's all his HS offered?</p>

71

<p>ashernm, and not all APs are the same quality. If one does not take the AP exam or submit scores, then nobody knows what was taught and what was learned.</p>

72

<p>The place where class rank appears almost on every application is on the Counselors Recommendation. It clearly asks for the class rank and number of students in the class. It also asks whether this is based on weighted or unweighted GPAs. And the counselor rec also asks about the GPA both weighted and unweighted. See the common ap Counselor Form. I would assume that the adcoms LOOK at this form and consider the information on it. Otherwise why would it be there. Also, on some of the individual college applications, the counselor form also asks for class rank. We have a number of these applications here. Again...I assume that IF they are asking for this information, they somehow will use it in their admissions process.</p>

73

<p>I don't have time right now to read through this whole thread (gotta get up early), but i'd like to respond to the OP: </p>

<p>Yea, class rank means different things at different schools. Of course there are more competitive high schools. But, at many <em>average</em> high schools, class rank can tell a lot. At my high school there were big differences between students ranked in each decile chunk.</p>

<p>Many universities that have admissions numbers that would make most CC members cringe have honors programs, in many cases, to help their numbers. It's no different with the SAT, right? Many honors programs also have strict SAT cutoffs, as well.</p>

<p>Either way, I don't think it can be debated that the students in the top decile have, in some way or another, outperformed those in, say, the fourth decile (given that there is a a fair ranking system in place that appropriately rewards the difficulty of classes taken.)</p>

74

<p>Ashernm, it's difficult to see how one gets penalized for attending a "better" high school. Although taxguy is upset about the few isolated incidents associated with students with high class ranks in less competitive high schools getting perks, let's not lose perspective. Students are penalized when they don't go to a good high school. They are penalized by the absence of an intellectual environment among the students. They are penalized by unmotivated teachers and administrators. They are penalized by having fewer financial resources available to their top students. While I can understand the irritation felt when an opportunity is denied, the opportunities afforded to those who attend the top high schools far outstrip those lost.</p>

75

<p>Mol10e notes, "Ashernm, it's difficult to see how one gets penalized for attending a "better" high school. "</p>

<p>Response: Actually, this is exactly what can happen especially in magnet schools. There was an article in the Washington Post about 6 months to a year ago that discussed this problem. It seems that kids from magnet programs and from very competitive high schools actually have to have better GPAs and SATs to get into top schools. The reasoning given by the post, if I remember, is that top schools don't want to take too many kids form any one public high school ( I guess private schools don't have as much of a problem). Thus, you need higher stats to get into the same school. </p>

<p>At the bottom of this post are two urls for Naviance ,which is a web site that lists admissions into various schools and rejections by SATs and GPAs for various high schools. The first url is our high school, the second url lists a number of other schools. Sign in as a guest, go to college look up, and use the graph option, and compare entrance to various schools such as Brown. You will see a marked disparity among high schools as to entrance requirements.</p>

<p>Wootton High School Naviance:<a href="https://tcci.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=wootton%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://tcci.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=wootton&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Other sundry high schools:<a href="http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?5/77924%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?5/77924&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Don't believe me. Check this out for yourself.</p>

76

<p>Taxguy it is a sad situation and I believe you are absolutely correct. We have friends that live in another community (small city). At their hs 1/3 graduates do not attend college at all. It is so much easier for our friend's kids to gain access into AP and honors classes. It is much easier for them to have a high gpa than the kids in our hs. They even have Sat. school for these kids to tutor them for sat 1 and sat IIs for free! Their parents hired a private tutor in addition to this for their sat. They are offered other summer perks that are unbelievable, but I won't even get into that.</p>

77

<p>Taxguy -</p>

<p>I believe the article you cited was written by Jay Mathews. Further perspective for magnet admissions is offered on a "Where did TJ kids end up?" thread. The links are out there somewhere, so I won't bother to post them. Wonder if you are a bottom 50% at Wootton or TJ how it effects ones chances for competitive admissions.</p>

78

<p>So if you compare your high school to Wilton High School(Ct) in terms of admissions to Georgetown what you get is that the average GPA for admitted students is about .75 less at Wilton. But what does this mean? Certainly Wilton HS is not a inner city high school. It is in one of the highest SES areas in the country. The discrepancy is certainly not due to a hidden agenda of AA. Is there grade inflation at your school versus Wilton and the Georgetown adcoms see the school profile and make a determination? Is your school penalized because there are more applications than they get from Wilton? Obviously there is no way to know for sure. My point is that in the total scheme of total education of your child would you want to send your kid to a less prestigious high school so he could automatically qualify for the honors program at Cincinnatti?</p>

79

<p>taxguy and deb922,</p>

<p>It seems a bit odd that you need a 3.8 for entry into the honors program at UC and the web-site says that the average of their honors students is 3.8. Unless all their students in the honors program have a 3.8 GPA then there must be some with less than a 3.8 GPA.</p>

<p>Regardless, I get the sense that many of the schools do not want to explain all the criterea so they can retain some wiggle room. Further, they do not want to "pre-admit" a student to a program without taking a "holistic" view of their application.</p>

<p>However, if true, it seems that the UC policy is a bit strange and runs counter to most of the advice I have seen to take the most challenging courses available.</p>

80

<p>If the issue of rank is so problematic why aren't parents pushing back to their local school administrations as the colleges can only work with the information that they are given from the local schools. I know for the most part my D' high school did not rank however the GC would confidentially rank for admissions and scholarship consideration. I am quite sure that there are other schools that have similiar policies.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I remember, is that top schools don't want to take too many kids form any one public high school

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The "too many students" is a relative thing as I live in NYC and it is not unusal for schools like stuyvestant , Bronx science, Hunter, brooklyn tech (all competitive magnet specialized schools)etc to take multiple students .</p>

<p>Stuyvesant H.S. in NYC Class of 2005 had the following admits;</p>

<p>7- harvard, 12- Princeton, 30-Cornell, 29-Columbia, 16-Dartmouth, 6-Penn, 8-Stanford, 9 wash u, 7 williams, 4 -amherst, 4-brown, 4-cooper union, 8-georgetown, 8-Jhu, 11-MIT and mutltiple admissions at chichago, wes, wellesley, vassar etc. with a large number of ED admits in each school.</p>

<p>Even when one of the parents posted the admissions from Thomas Jefferson, there were multiple admits from the same school..</p>

<p>The admissions at different schools also do not take into consideration that students are most likely admitted to more than one school (excetion ED) and in the end can only choose one</p>

<p>will you attend a private college and have a freshman class (about 1000-1500 students) that consists overwhelming number of students from a particular high school? No. In smaller schools such as williams, amherst, swat etc. the numbers are going to be smaller because of the smaller class.</p>

<p>You must remember that almost every student that applies to a selective school is "smart". However there are not enouglh spaces for every smart kid that applies. while objective measures grades, scores and ranks get you over one hurdle it is most likley the subjective measures (recs, essays, ecs) that add other dimenisions to the students and in conjection with the objective measures that moe the application to the admit, deny or wait pile.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, most private colleges build classes according to the inistitutional mission that they are trying to fulfill. So inspite of grades, scores, top magnets etc. the inistiutional mission tops everything</p>