<p>cc123, clearly not being 1 or 2 didn’t hurt me enough to getting me rejected. It may have hurt me, but maybe my other elements made up for it. Also, the test score is more of a baseline stat, and does not equate to intelligence and judging a high school’s competitiveness. I was #7 for most of high school and I had the highest test score of any student, far above those who had higher GPA’s. The next highest score came from a student who had below a 4.0 Weighted GPA and barely made top 10%, he was accepted to the UCSC Honors program though. SAT/ACT show academic strength to the extent a standardized test can in a singular applicant, but sometimes is not well aligned to diffiulty of grading in high school, if that was what you were implying. Ignore the last few sentences if not. I wouldn’t rule out a #10/300 applicant that has decent test scores for the top schools, it will depend upon EC’s and essays (or URM status). </p>
<p>Also, the high school counselor sends in a report of where previous students have attended, the average GPA, etc. A college is not blind to how fairly difficult a school is.</p>