<p>Some schools don’t, and that kind of brings up a dilemma. It seems a bit illogical to me as you’re not selecting from a pool of people in one specific area (say one school) but from all applicants. Why does it matter if one person is better than another in the same school, in fact it seems that school rank should play a bigger role.</p>
<p>It’s a data point. When available, it can be useful. But don’t think that colleges are enslaved to its significance. It’s a single bit of information.</p>
<p>There are a lot of private schools that don’t rank students. Our local public HS has also decided to eliminate rank, and has on average a dozen valedictorians each year.</p>
<p>When we toured Midwest LACs and talked to admin staff, it was clear that the HS itself was an important consideration, and HS’ strong reputation for “producing prepared students” was a significant help for its students’ college applications. Son’s HS’ Navigance data seems to confirm this, with certain high-profile schools accepting this HS’ students even with a lower GPA/score profile than College Guidebooks’ published median profile.</p>
<p>Some schools use it to qualify you for merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Wondering about the same thing. Even though some HS doesn’t rank their students. The colleges know how these students rank based on their GPA within the same high school. Right?</p>
<p>The answer to the question is: it depends on the college. Check the common data set, or the admission tab on the college’s entry on [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) .</p>
<p>I’m surprised by many of the above replies.</p>
<p>Class rank is an extremely important point of reference in admissions considerations at selective and very selective colleges. It facilitates comparisons of students from different schools.</p>
<p>And although many private high schools do not rank, they often provide an overall grade profile to colleges. Using the profile colleges can easily determine the decile of an applicant – i.e. top 10%, 10-20% etc.</p>
<p>That’s actually pretty depressing considering I’m kind of low on the scale for decile rank.</p>
<p>I think its pretty important for international admissions. my GPA would be now where near a lot of the students who get into top schools in the US, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing any worse than them. Our scoring is just very different, and I’m ranked first or second in my grade. In a lot of countries often no students will get A’s, as scoring is far more stringent</p>
<p>The disproportionate number of Vals/Sals accepted to top schools would suggest it matters.</p>