<p>So I got my school rank back a week ago, and I am roughly 80/ 470 kids in my class. Besides having an emotional problem (legitimate excuse) during my junior year which caused me to get a couple B’s in AP classes, the only other B’s I had were during the high school credit classes I took during middle school. Without those classes, I would be easily within the top 3% of my class. If my GC writes a statement for me stating that I would be in the top 3% without my middle school grades, will competitive schools like UChicago or MIT deem it acceptable and forgive my bad “official” rank? Or will they just not care and only look at the number?</p>
<p>They will consider what your GC says, but whether they’ll totally ‘forgive’ your rank, I don’t know. </p>
<p>For MIT, ask on the MIT forum here or I think you can ask questions on their Admissions blog. The UChicago forum has a sticky thread at the top where an admissions rep answers questions, you should check/ask there.</p>
<p>You mention a couple things here. One of them is that, gee, it would be really nice if those rigor classes could be excluded from my GPA calculation. Sorry, no. Your GPA is what it is. Colleges that are looking for rigor will reward you for having taken the more difficult path. </p>
<p>You also mentioned perhaps there were some exceptionally difficult things going on in your life. It these are legitimate (like a medical issue) you could consider bringing that up. If it were really that truamatic though why did it only effect your most difficult classes ? My advice is to ride this out and focus on your essay, test scores.</p>
<p>Thank you for your comment, Mitchklong. I realize now that I haven’t put enough information. I am taking the hardest possible classes in my school, and am the first generation of students from my school who can take multivariable as a senior. Unfortunately, it did not only affect my hardest classes. I also got A-'s in AP psychology and US history, which are considered pretty mediocre in difficulty at my school. Basically, the only legitimate A’s I got junior year were Orchestra and english. This was the first year that I didn’t receive a history award from the department, because I’m usually really good at history. I also have an A+ (highest grade) in multivariable currently, which is taught by my old BC teacher.</p>