How is Class Rank determined at your child's school?

Consolation
Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:50:35 +0000

AFAIK our HS still does not weight grades and still does not rank. They do declare a val and a sal, and do release a “top 10” to the local newspaper. Since it is quite possible for the val to be a kid who has never taken a single honors or AP class–this has actually happened–those in the know tend to view both of these things with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Usually the top students in terms of GPA also have taken a rigorous courseload, just because of the nature of things. But the kid who has taken the EVEN MORE rigorous courseload, or the kid who has taken a rigorous load but not gotten all As, is not going to be rewarded with a rank boost. So the top ten and val/sal would be similar but not exactly the same if the weighting systems in place elsewhere were applied.

A couple of years ago, I spoke to the college counselor, who was in the process of calculating rank for deciles. Apparently they will make that information available–but based only on UNWEIGHTED grades–if institutions require it. I do know at least one kid who was royally screwed by this.