Absolutely agree: it may not be most schools or even many, but top schools do use the school profile to estimate rank, counselors at schools “that don’t rank” do often indicate a range/decile in their letter, and yes some schools do keep data on previous applicants and refer to it if needed for comparison. Exact rank is not the focus, it is more the general range: a 3.8 unweighted that is around top third of a school is very different than a 3.8 that is top 10%. Naviance and/or other platforms are used by colleges too, and certainly it is conceivable they could sort applicant data by region or even high school if they wanted to.
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