Class Rank Question

With the exception of recruited athletes or the equivalent, I haven’t seen anyone get into Harvard from a good public school with a class rank much outside the top 1%. (Not counting places like Stuyvesant of Thomas Jefferson.) One of my kids’ classmates was admitted SCEA a while ago when he was ranked #7 in a class of 550 (about 25 of whom were accepted at Ivies or near equivalents), but if you had taken a poll of who was the smartest kid in the class he would have won going away. He probably gained a couple of places at least during his senior year, too. His GPA/class rank reflected some ESL issues early in high school.

That said, I doubt Harvard has a knee-jerk reaction to class rank. The OP’s kid would probably be helped if other top students from the school also apply. If his recent grades in courses Harvard cares about are as good as or better than the others’, he will be treated like someone with top grades from that school. If not, not. I don’t think a couple of middle school A-s recorded on his 9th grade transcript will keep him out of Harvard, but the other grades that put him at risk of missing the first decile with those grades in the mix – that’s another story, and they may keep him out.