Will my class rank make or break me?

Applying to College
1

<p>I just got my High school transcript for the first time and my unweighted rank is 55/202 and my weighted is 50/202 (~3.77 and ~3.95 GPAs respectively). Will these make or break my college applications? Also, is there a way not to submit class ranking? On the common data sets it seems like only a small percentage actually submit it.</p>

<p>Here are the rest of my creds:</p>

<p>Colleges I will most likely be applying to:</p>

<p>Michigan State University
Syracuse University
College of the Holy Cross<br>
Bates College
Wake Forest University
University of Michigan</p>

<p>GPAs are in the paragraph</p>

<p>1 honors class, 3 AP classes, I will be taking 3 AP classes next year</p>

<p>Extracurriculars: At the end of March, I will have 2 years on our FIRST Robotics team One of those is as head of Finance. I will be doing that senior year as well. I'm aware that this isn't much in terms of extracurriculars, but my school does not offer many and Robotics takes up 5/7 of my time out of school.</p>

<p>1 year varsity hockey (quit because of knee injury making it extremely difficult to play without pain. I still play club because it does not require as much play time.)</p>

<p>Volunteering: In the off season of this year, I will be doing a lot of volunteering for a senior center. </p>

<p>Work experience: I've worked each summer for a total of about 1 year of part time work total</p>

<p>ACT: Haven't taken it yet, but it'll be somewhere around a 26 composite. Definitely enough to get into state. I'm still working to get it up with practice</p>

<p>Essays: I'm fairly good at writing so essays won't be difficult</p>

<p>Recommendations: One will come from my economics teacher and the other will come from a guidance counselor.</p>

<p>I'll chance back if you want me to. Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Of all the things on your transcript, actual class rank is probably the least important, other than your grades in gym. What it really does is put your grades in context, and it’s the context that’s really important.</p>

<p>That said, given your grades, in context, and your ACT, you’re probably on the low side for schools like Wake Forest and Holy Cross. Syracuse might be a good bet. Bates (29-32 ACT) is not a good bet, unless you were still able to play hockey.</p>

3

<p>It depends. Here are some relevant comments on class rank by the College Board:
[Class</a> Rank & College Admission](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/guidance/applications/rank]Class”>Class Rank and College Admission – Counselors | College Board)</p>

<p>The common data set also includes info about how important class rank, if reported, is viewed by the college. I was curious about your schools because they are all over the place.</p>

<p>Holy Cross views class rigor, gpa and recommendations as Very Important, where class rank is Important and scores are just Considered.</p>

<p>Bates considers class rank Very Important as does Wake Forest.</p>

<p>Michigan State considers gpa and scores Very Important where rank is just Considered. Michigan it is just considered.</p>

<p>Syracuse is a very interesting case in that gpa, rank and scores are only considered. Whereas Level of Applicant’s Interest is marked Very Important. You’d better find out what constitutes interest, visits etc and make sure your interest is known.</p>

<p>Note that is is not the Chances section of the forum.</p>

4

<p>Thanks to both of you for the responses. Brownparent, I didn’t realize that their priorities are all different. I did remember being confused about syracuse’s interests though when I saw their common dataset. Also, my colleges are kind of sporadic in location because some of those colleges cover 100% of need and are test optional, which are my far reaches. I know I don’t have great grades for colleges like Bates and Holy Cross and Wake, but I remember seeing on Bates’s website that their average weighted GPA is only 3.8. I don’t know how they weight it, but if they weight it the same way my school does, then I’d say that school is a slightly close reach. Where would you put the others?</p>

<p>Again thanks to both for your responses</p>

5

<p>If you are serious about getting into Bates, make sure you visit and also interview. Level of applicant’s interest is important to admissions and those are the key ways to demonstrate interest.</p>

6

<p>The only place I found class rank really mattered was at my D’s school, in the merit awards. She had pretty good GPA and low scores for this school, but when I played with the NPC (did her gpa need to go up? what if she improved her scores?), the merit award would come out lower if she was in the ‘15-25%’ of class rank rather than ‘6-14%’ (if you are top 5%, it seemed you got the top award and less importance was on the scores/gpa). Of course daughter was right at that 14/15% number, sometimes 14.45, sometimes 14.8. If you didn’t put the rank into the NPC, then her numbers gave her the higher award! I was going crazy.</p>

<p>When I talked to the school about it, they said it did matter if she was 14% or 15% for the school’s rankings of the student body make up. What was annoying was that if there was NO ranking (many schools don’t rank at all), that was fine too and she’d get the higher award, but we couldn’t ‘not report the rank’ as it’s on the transcript. The ranking was out of our control. One semester there were 435 kids in her class, the next 412 - the kids leaving or dropping out weren’t in the top 75, so very little movement in the top of her class.</p>

<p>In the end, there isn’t anything you can do about it except to make sure your numbers are correct, that your rank is correct. If it is optional to report it, don’t.</p>