jobryan

Im a junior in high school right now, so naturally, applying to college has been on my mind. I Have pretty good numbers: 3.85 unweighted GPA, 32 on my last ACT (took another one today, so it could potentially go up), and my extra curriculars are decent. What is bumming me out though is my class rank. I will be applying to University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Michigan State University as my fall back. When i'm looking at admission stats at U of M and Northwestern, I'm seeing numbers like 85%+ of students admitted were in the top 10% of their class. I am ranked 56 of 430 students in my school, which places me somewhere around the 87th percentile. Apparently my school has some pretty smart kids in it. So why is it then that colleges care about class rank? If I have the GPA that would put me in the top 10% of my class at most other schools, then what does it matter if I'm not ranked as highly in my school?

ucbalumnus

You can check the college's common data set, section C7, to see how important class rank is at each college.

The whole business of using a combination of grades, class rank, test scores, and various non-academic factors at highly selective colleges' admissions is due to the inconsistency of course content and grading in high schools. A 3.85 GPA may not mean the same thing at a high school with more or less grade inflation. Of course, class rank of top 13% may not mean the same thing at another high school either. Standardized tests are common measures across students from different high schools, but (at least the SAT-R) tend to be weaker predictors of college success than high school grades.

HSClass2013

Unless you go to one of a handful of elite prep schools, your class rank should probably be well within the top 10% for selective colleges. Each school calculates GPA a different way, so rank puts that into perspective within each school.

SlitheyTove

OP, you said that your GPA is unweighted. If your high school calculates class rank based on UW GPA but you took challenging classes (Honors, AP, IB) then colleges can also take that into account.

yodelo

Every high school is different so they want to see how you compare within your school.

dblazer

A 3.8 at one school may place an individual in the top 1% while at another school, outside the top 10% - so to a degree, it's used to more accurately asses the grading scale of your school and give better context to the adcom as to how to view one's gpa. Also, many top colleges want to see that you're the best and class rank is one of the ways they choose to judge.

boysx3

class rank becomes important because of grade inflation....

RedSeven

GPA cannot translate from one high school to another. The difficulty of the grading system always varies between schools, and schools don't necessarily calculate GPA in the same way. Your GPA is meaningless at another high school and would first have to be converted to that high school's GPA to be compared to students there. While it's possible to use a different formula to calculate your GPA, it's not possible to determine what your grades would have been at a different school.

The correlation between GPA and intelligence is lacking. GPA is more a factor of effort than intelligence. People of mediocre intelligence who spend excessive amounts of time on academics can end up with the same GPA as someone with high intelligence who puts in only minimal effort (and better than someone with high intelligence who slacks off).

MSU is definitely a good safety school for you. I'd be very surprised if you didn't get in. However, you might want to add another school just in case and as a financial safety.

With UMich admissions getting more difficult, I think it could really go either way. You're a competitive applicant, but your class rank might hold you back.

jobryan

What do you guys mean by grade inflation? There is no grade inflation at my school at all, unless im misunderstanding you. Of all of the school districts I've lived in (which is three), the school im at now grades the toughest. 95% is the minimum for an A and the rest is pretty standard.

I've decided not to apply to Northwestern. Even in the unlikely chance I got accepted, tuition is to expensive compared to in state at U of M, and therefore simply not worth it. So that makes U of M my reach I guess. I felt pretty confident I could get accepted, but Red Seven, you seem skeptical. A girl from my school, who is a year ahead of me, got accepted with a 3.75 and a 27 on her ACT. As far as I can tell, her extra currics weren't extraordinary either. So I'm still maintaining a positive attitude.

zephyr15

OP

I think that your questions should really go to your guidance counselor and, if available, check Naviance. Here's the thing, when people say that you need to be in the top 10% or need a 3.8 GPA, they're talking on average.

For some HS, top 15% would give you a shot at Michigan or NU. For others, you'd need to be in top 5% or better (btw, for NU at least, and probably Michigan, even Valedictorian would not be a guarantee of admissions).

Your GC would have a much better view of what top 15% means at your HS than anyone here.