<p>ive been obsessed with duke forever, and ive posted on this forum many times.
im taking 6 ap's right now, and its tough as anything especially with exams right now... b/c of the workload and the toughness of these courses its hard to keep my rank of 3, but what seems kind of unfair is the fact that people taking less tough ap's maybe 5 or 4 are creeping up a head of me... plus with courses like ap computer science, my gpa is bound to go down...</p>
<p>can anyone tell me exactly how important is rank, and will duke see that ive taken the MOST difficult courseload of anyone in my skool, which further causes my rank to go down???</p>
<p>btw i would say my ec's are my strong point, im currently the youth governor of south carolina and making improvements to the program like crazy, a state champion speech and debate captain, a boy scout about to get eagle working w/ the red cross, and a few other things...</p>
<p>im expecting an act score of about 30 to 31, and i used to beable to say my rank of 3 will stay and hold strong, however, after exams, i doubt i can say that anymore...</p>
<p>While rank is important, colleges do want to see you challenge yourself. That being said, taking a big load of APs and getting C's, D's and a few F's isn't going to impress anyone. Colleges also want to see if you can handle the college level courses. </p>
<p>Speaking from my personal opinion (not worth very much I'm afraid), if you are pulling a few A's, a few B's and maybe 1 C, and falling back to say a rank of 10, I don't think you have much to worry about. Admissions officers are people too and can understand your situation. My college counselor usually said that top 5% is plenty good enough, depending on the size your school, that should give some wiggle room. </p>
<p>Other that that, I really can't comment on anything else. Good job on your ECs, they are certainly very impressive and will no doubt work in your favor. Good luck and keep up the hard work!</p>
<p>i have a quick question then, it seems especially with SC and colleges such as Duke that rank especially being in the top 5 or 10 people makes a big difference. I know several people similar ec's and good sat's that fall behind just because there rank... i def understand theres a billion other factors.. It just seems like the people that get into duke and other skools consistently rank in the top 5 to 10 people in there class</p>
<p>I really don't think that you have a problem, i know a person at Riverside High School in SC, ranked 4th, stilll made it in Duke. MAde it in speech in Congress, has a little brother that goes to Clemson, maybe you know of him?lol. you're fine. Make sure you score decently on the SAT though, and Mauldin has a bigger class that RHS, so i don't think you'll have a problem.</p>
<p>for what it's worth, I wasn't even in the top 10 PERCENT of my class, much less the top 10, and things worked out for me at Duke. don't even play a sport ;)</p>
<p>i'm like you mmehta. i was ranked 4, then moved to 2, and now i'll move to 18 or something because i have a b average this semester (but i'm already in Duke so it doesn't matter) out of 800 students or so. i got a 32 on the ACT. dont' worry, duke looks for students who are different and cool. kind of like me. not to be humble or anything :D</p>