<p>What are some disadvantages of ranking students in high school?</p>
<p>Electives will often lower one’s GPA if it is above a 4.0 weighted, even if one gets A+'s in said electives (because of weighting and averaging issues). Although, if the school can resolve that issue, then there aren’t really any.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>In highly competitive schools, where everyone is truly a top student, ranking can make it appear that exceptional students are average, or even at the bottom of the school.</p>
<p>It can encourage students to take easier classes to preserve a higher GPA.</p>
<p>A disadvantage in the ranking system is that there are people ,who go to schools that I would consider hyper-competitive, are thrown of the running for The University of Texas at Austin or “capped”(given a chance to go to UT but you need to transfer from a feeder school) . Generally, these people are more likely to be able to handle the curriculum more so than somebody who went to a school where I could sleep through all th AP courses and still be valedictorian. However, it gives those who are hardworking in school but have a less than mediocre SAT scores a chance for selective colleges. The top ten percent rule gives people like me a chance to be accepted atleast somewhere before I apply to selective universities.</p>
<p>Are we talking about high schools ranking students?
If we are the I don’t think that ranking isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem is when classes get weighted. A person could take about 2 APs/honors classes and do very well in them. Then another person could take 4 APs/honors classes and do poorly in most. The weighting will allow the student to go from a C average in the class, to a high B or low A. Then this person who is completely under-qualified compared to the first person academically, will have a higher weighted rank. Then again, this depends on how much the school decides to weight honors and AP classes. My school adds 20% which is a little ridiculous. The person who has the 10th rank only has it because she took every AP and Honors class there was. She isn’t doing to well in 4/5 of those classes but still has a higher rank than those who know their limit and are more deserving.</p>
<p>My school has 3 weighted music courses were you get an automatic A+ for showing up. My elective is an AP class where I get homework every night and have to work to maintain a 97, and my classmates are getting 100’s with 0 effort.</p>
<p>When the high school student body is very small. Sometimes scholarships require someone to be in the “top 10%” of a class. A student body of 100 students (esp a competitive one) means that only 10 students can be considered in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Yes, the other high school I could of gone to only has a sophomore class of 74, and they are the top 1-2 students from each district in the county. Even the bottom 10% of the class is still full of good students (where as at my high school if you just go to class more than once a week you’re already better than half the student body)</p>
<p>Are you from NJ? If so, I have a hunch you’re talking about the MCVSD school district. I attended one of those schools.</p>
<p>At our competitive high school where many students take many AP’s (the only weighted component) many students end up with above a 4.0 Weighted GPA. Then our school calls all at 4.0 or above WGPA top 1%. There were 40 kids who had this at our school. Top 1% should really be only 4 kids (400 in graduating class). This played off negatively to those below 4.0 and the true Valedictorian (my son!!)</p>
<p>“The weighting will allow the student to go from a C average in the class, to a high B or low A.”</p>
<p>My school has the opposite problem. My school weighs AP and honors classes too LITTLE. This has caused a few kids who stayed in regular classes all 4 years to have 4.0 gpas while many of my colleagues in the more strenuous classes with a few Bs do not have as high of a weighted gpa. This also messes with the rank, as kids who for all four years did not challenge themselves are in the top 10%, while others who struggled to maintain high grades in the hardest classes available are not always in the top 10%.</p>