<p>I would not discourage a kid from taking an interesting class (elective) if it “hurt” his GPA. Personally I think that sucks if people are doing that (and I know they are!)</p>
<p>One thing I would add - my dd goes to a private school (190 kids in her class) and they do NOT rank. I have asked many ad comms about that and they have told me it is getting close to 1/2 of the schools in the country do not rank - so when you see the stats about what percentile you have to be in on the common data set or website - remember that is only about 1/2 of the admitted students stats. I have been told to not worry about it and I would certainly not worry about being 11% instead of 10% if the rest of the application is great!</p>