Check out the Class of 2030 profile published on the FSU Admissions IG page:
Posting this for future students interested in FSU who look at the profile, see the numbers and worry they shouldn’t apply because they aren’t top 10% of their class (or perhaps another number doesn’t meet the averages) - you should still apply;
D26 OOS Admission
ACT: 33
SAT: 1450 - 730 Reading / 720 Math
UWGPA 3.88 (4.0)
WGPA 4.44 (5.0: Honors +0.5, AP/IB +1.0)
13 AP/IB and 15 Honors
Summa Cum Laude
Her public HS is a nationally recognized Magnet School (something like 350 HS in US for this particular award) - her class rank was somewhere around 18% when application went in - she will likely finish in the top 14-15% (but that isn’t what was on her transcript for admissions)
Her ECs include;
Cross Country 4 years, Varsity, and Captain
Winter & Spring Track 2 Years, Varsity
Women in History Club 2 year, Co-founder/co-president
Book Club 2 years, vice-president
Amnesty International 4 years
Key Club 4 Years
Asst coach youth soccer (Volunteer)
Red Cross AED/CPR adult and infant certified
Indiana University - Kelley School of Business Women’s Leadership Institute 2025
Paid Summer Internship in small business consulting - operations, finance, customer service along with professional development program.
D26 is a North Carolina Resident.
With the above, her application record thus far;
Wait Listed - UNC-CH (In State)
Deferred to RD (decision coming today) - University of Texas (McCombs School of Business)
Pending - University of Washington
Admitted;
Indiana University - Kelley School of Business DA
University of Illinois - Gies School of Business
University of Georgia
University of Florida
Purdue University - Daniels School of Business
University of Tennessee - Haslam College of Business
Florida State University
North Carolina State University (In State) - Poole College of Management
Other than for her home state school UNC-CH and probably University of Texas McCombs, her class rank outside of the top 10% didn’t keep her from admissions at a number of very good schools (and merit scholarship money from several) - so please don’t say “I’m not applying” because you have a ‘Stat’ that is outside of some specific category.
Good Luck
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I think most of the applicants who are concerned aren’t in the top 20% of an elite national high school and don’t have a 1450 SAT. Your daughter would likely be in the top 5% (or better) of most high schools.
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Congrats to her. The thing with rank is most schools don’t - so yes, you have to take with a grain of salt.
Congrats on outstanding admissions.
I was simply using an example of how a schools “Stats” profile can discourage students from applying because of one or two numbers outside of the range provided as standards.
In this particular case (with FSU) it leads with the 92% of admitted students are in the top 10% of their class. That would imply that only 8% of admissions go to kids who are not in the top 10% of their class. And OOS should likely mean there’s an even smaller number of available seats for an applicant.
An alternative stat could be the ACT score. The 50% mid range has it at a 31 floor, and thus 25% of accepted students would fall below this number ( 25% of admitted students would be a larger number than 8% of admitted students) so someone who scored a 28 would certainly be outside of their profile numbers - should they not apply because of a single metric. That was the point I was attempting to make.
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Most schools don’t - ?
Do you mean to say most High Schools don’t supply class rank or that most Universities don’t evaluate class rank?
For the former, there are still quite a large percentage of High Schools that utilize class rank (though not all of them report it on transcripts to Common App or Colleges directly) but it’s not as if only a very small percentage use it.
For the latter, of the eleven public state flagships D26 applied to, six of them report that it is evaluated (from Very Important to Considered) in applications where it is provided, and five report it as (not considered). In this situation, FSU reports class rank for it’s Academic Evaluation as “Important” along with GPA, Test Scores, and Essay - where only Course Rigor is evaluated with more weight as “Very Important”.
Though whether or not the students “Class Rank” is specifically evaluated wasn’t really the point I was attempting to make here - it was more along the lines of, don’t let one or two ‘numbers’ that are out of bounds for a published admitted student profile dissuade you from applying because you’re thinking you ‘won’t get in’.
Not sure the % but I believe less than half rank.
If you look at school profiles, last year
FSU said 56% submitted a rank
Bowdoin = 26%
Indiana U 27%
UCLA and U Wash doesn’t report a #.
Harvard 29%.
UNC 69%.
U Wisconsin 27%.
Wash U 30% (2023 CDS)
Colorado 40%
U Chicago 25%
Rice (and they’re in Texas) - 44%
You can find the % in the last box in C10 of the CDS.
Obviously a UT Austin will have a higher % as it’s required by the state, etc.
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So high schools do still use class rank, and universities do still use it for academic evaluation of applicants.
It’s not an ‘opt in/out’ selection for the individual student, such as it can be for test scores at some universities (and I’m aware there are universities which automatically don’t consider test scores either).
And probably more importantly, as an individual student with a N=1 your high school either does or does not report class rank on your transcript - you don’t get a say in the matter. And an individual university either does or does not evaluate class rank (if it does, it likely has some amount of weight attached to it’s importance).
Therefore, a student who goes to a high school which reports a class rank and who applies to a university which evaluates class rank as part of an application, will evaluate that student on the class rank that is reported by their school.
Regardless, in the context of the general point I was attempting to make, it could just as easily been made with an applicant with a GPA that was 0.25 below the middle 50 or an SAT of 1330 etc. For my particular D26, it just happens to be class rank (which her school reports and FSU says they evaluate) and the admitted student profile makes it sound like 92% of admitted students are in the top 10% of their class… so if you aren’t in the top 10% you don’t have much of a chance because only 8% of their admitted students get in with a class rank outside of top 10%.
Your daughter is obviously one of the 8% - and there are always outliers. When you look at the GPA, 25% are below a 4.3.
So there are always outliers.
But in FSU’s case, there’s also 44% of students they did not evaluate a class rank.
I’m not disagreeing with you - but I am noting class rank is of less consequence whereas we know in Florida, 100% have submitted a test (more important).
Many TX high schools don’t formally rank below top 10% since there’s automatic admission to all but UT Austin with that rank.
Colleges look at grades and rigor (AP//dual credit) to balance things out.
In some regions most schools don’t rank students…
None near me do anywhere (on transcript or on profiles, etc).
There are not even GPA ranges on profiles, not even “honor rolls” or such. Most have NHS or similar though.
My 27s HS, get this, doesn’t calculate GPA on the transcript - at all. just list grades.
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