<p>Many selective colleges receive Class Rank from less than 50% of applicants. They simply cannot place much emphasis on it with this low response rate.</p>
<p>Instead, the Regional Adcom will work to know each high school and understand applicants in the context of that school. Because this results in estimates, there is little difference between top 1% and top 10% for most high schools. Instead of considering “Class Rank”, they consider “Academic Performance” and “Academic Rigor”.</p>
<p>My impression is that even the title of Valedictorian has become so watered down that this designation no longer carries much weight. Some high schools award the title “Valedictorian” to anyone whose GPA is above 4.0, even if this means 20 or more students. I read on a thread where a student wasn’t in his class’s top 10%, but he did have Val on his transcript.</p>