<p>colorado_mom: You mentioned that your coworker’s son was not admitted to Stanford and the dad thought that rank was an/the issue. I agree that Stanford is a tough admit for all–however, it is not a tough admit in the same way that HYP are, in our part of the country. In terms of the recent admissions outcomes, HYP seem more predictable. I think you can see some differences in the admit/deny patterns at S vs. other top schools if you look at the results thread on this forum. The Stanford philosophy is just a bit different–which is all to say that I am not sure that rank was the issue, as opposed to their admissions preferences.</p>
<p>On the other hand, at the local high school, we had a student who was not admitted to Princeton–somewhat unexpectedly to the GC. The GC called Princeton and from the discussion deduced that the student’s two grades of A- in 10th grade literature (all other grades were A’s) had kept the student out. I think that the reason for this was that the two grades of A- put the student very close to the borderline of the top 10% and perhaps even out of it, at the local school. Princeton admissions apparently had not picked up on the fact that the local school used no course weighting to determine rank–it’s just the raw unweighted GPA that counts. The next year (QMP’s freshman year at the high school) ranks were gone.</p>