<p>@everyday… wrote: “If you have 5 students who are (pretend along with me) completely equal in every way with excellent test scores, grades, rigor, ECs, essays, personality, etc., but have rank of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50”</p>
<p>If they have equal grades and rigor there would not be a 40 ranking difference between the two.</p>
<p>Some kids/parents work very hard to get to val/sal - as early as thinking about this in middle school and plan how to take more AP/Honors and place out of or take early the courses in which you “merely” can get a 4.0 for an A.</p>
<p>But that goal doesn’t always translate into the best college result. At our high school, the Val/Sal both got turned down by one of the top Ivy’s while some students with much lower grades got in. The difference was what was in the rest of their application.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>But for the OP, having a 4.0 unweighted and a solid schedule is not really different than a 4.0 unweighted who edged you out for Val/Sal because they took one less non-honors type class.</p>