I am seeing with increasing frequency that colleges are using class rank as more of a major factor in admissions. Some colleges, such as University of Cincinnati, require the top 10% of the high school class to be admitted into their honors program. Other schools want kids in the top 10% regardless of grades ( such as UT).
My question is simple: Why are colleges doing this? To me, it makes no sense. If my kids attends a top competitive high school with magnet programs, there will be many top kids that aren’t in the top 10 or even 20% who probably would easily be in the top 10% elsewere. A good example involved one of my sons. He was in the top 5% of his middle school class. We transfered to one of the top high schools in Maryland ( and according to US News and World Reports, one of the top 20 high schools in the nation). He, however, graduated probably in the top 40%. Clearly, had he stayed at his old high school, he would have been in the top 10%. Thus, the question is why is this a factor?
I can only think of one reason: an alternative to affirmative action. Affirmative action has a lot of negative legal ramifications. However, if they use class rank, students from poorer districts will get a leg up over those of richer districts and even magnet program schools. Can someone enlighten me.?
<p>I was ranked 1/500 at my middle school. I now attend a magnet school, and probably am ranked somewhere around 25/180 (used to be around 220 or so students, but so many people couldn't handle it and left to their home high schools), which isn't in the top 10 percent. It is horrible! Everyone is like you shouldn't have gone there. I don't regret anything. I love the school, the people, and the teachers. I think that is what counts.</p>
<p>Ranking gives the colleges an idea of how much inflation goes on at your school. However, if you go to a magnet, top public, or elite prep, the colleges will know.</p>
<p>I know people say that the colleges know...but I seriously don't that they not only don't know the school by memory, but they don't know the pressures of going to a magnet program. That is what I don't like. Like I won't get automatic acceptance to UT, yet my ACT score is like past their 75% percentile (25% - 75% breakdown), and I probably won't get scholarships because of my rank.</p>
<p>Colleges need to pay more attention to more competitive high schools. If your top 10-15 percent at a competitive high school..going to your regular school you would be like top 5%, but you know who they are going to accept the person that is top 5% of the regular high school because it is more pleasing to them..probably makes them look better too.</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with affrimative action. Its simply used to help them judge how much grade inflation goes on at the school. If someone has a 4.0 but is ranked 150/300 then they can assume that the school is pretty easy to get good grades at.</p>
<p>StealthVoltage notes,"Its simply used to help them judge how much grade inflation goes on at the school. If someone has a 4.0 but is ranked 150/300 then they can assume that the school is pretty easy to get good grades at."</p>
<p>Response: I am not sure that this is true. At our high school working very hard is the rule and NOT the exception. Everyone is very competitive. To be in the top 25%, you need a weighted average of 4.0. Top ivy kids have weighted average around 4.5 or so. These kids that get these top grades work very hard and earn them. This is true of magnet programs!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>To evaluate students in the context of their environments.</p></li>
<li><p>So they can report to the Collegeboard that 85% of their students were in the top 10% of their high school classes.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any school that solely demands a minimum GPA/SAT/rank - whether it's for admission to the college or a specialized program - is being stupid. But, unfortunately, many public schools use it.</p>
<p>Class rank adds more information to the GPA, especially at a school that the college/university doesn't know as much about. It helps hard-working students who attend high schools that don't inflate grades, and (depending on the rank and weighting system) it may help students who take tough schedules. It can hurt students who go to very competitive schools where everyone is college-bound, though. </p>
<p>It won't necessarily help minority students in poor districts. I'm guessing a smart, college-bound minority student at a crappy school is probably having little trouble getting a good GPA--the commensurately high class rank won't hurt or help.</p>
<p>A guaranteed admissions scheme, such as that practiced in Texas, may help minority students. But otherwise? I don't see it.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what school in Maryland was it? </p>
<p>I think they do it because for many colleges, improving their statistics is important. It's one reason they're willing to mix and match between different SAT scores (from different dates) - they want their averages to be higher, too.</p>
<p>My school (Georgetown Prep), doesn't rank. Instead, they give score ranges, and let you know how many students are in that range (we don't do GPA, just averages). That way, the colleges can get a general idea of where they are without hurting the kids who's grades differ by mere decimals.</p>
<p>Somebodnew, the school is Wootton, and they also don't provide class rank under the thesis that it is very unfair to rank kids at this school and use this in admissions. Personally, I completely agree.</p>
<p>my school in fairfax county didn't rank either</p>
<p>However, all GPAs are not created equal. At my high school the highest graduating GPA was a student who got all A's (there was only 1), and he had like a 4.22 or 4.25. If 25% of the kids are scoring above a 4.0, that's a lot. At my school it was like 3-4%, and a 3.5 put you right around the top 10-15%. Class rank helps if they want to compare a 3.7 at one school to a 4.1 at another, as well as comparing from students on different scales all together (4 pt scale, 5 pt scale, 6 pt scale, etc.)</p>
<p>Some people do argue though, possibly accurately, that if you go to a magnet program and end up in the bottom 25% of that school, you would have been better off staying at your home school, where you can be one of the top students.</p>
<p>The basic use for rank is to determine what the gpa really means. It is an indicator of how tough it is to get an A at a particular high school.</p>
<p>I think your question is more about why someone in the top 50% of a magnet school doesn't have an advantage over someone in the top 5% of a poor inner city school. People who do well in the environment that they find themselves tend to do well in any environment. You don't expect somebody from a underfunded high school with crime and bad teachers and uneducated parents to necessarily get 1600/1600 on the SAT's, but if they can go to school in that environment and do well, then they can probably do well in college.</p>
<p>People make it sound like if only there children would have went to bad public schools over magnet schools that they would have been able to be in a higher percent! Thats not true at all, infact your kids would have probably joined a gang, been shot by a gang or went into a depression because of all the gangs, maybe a combo of all of those factors, but I doubt you could pull rich kids out of there comfort zones and expect them to still do well.</p>