<p>I recently had my junior meeting and discovered my ranking is 85 out of 517. According to my counselor, my year is really smart and the competition will be fierce to be on top. As of now the ranking is kind of messed up due to students taking a majority of the same classes leading to clumps of students with the same ranking. If my ranking is accurate, I am in the top 20% (16% to be exact) and I need to aim for better. So how much do colleges really value the class rank? </p>
<p>It depends on the college. Some colleges put more emphasis on this while others don’t.</p>
<p>Your counselor is blowing smoke up your … your ranking and percentile will most definitely matter in some schools…they won’t care that your counselor says everybody is really smart. If you are just applying to state schhols that go by GPA and test scores, then you are fine. </p>
<p>I’m kind of in the same situation. My school is very competitive to get into the top 10%. If I still have a high GPA yet my ranking doesn’t exactly correlate with my GPA since it’s lower does it still matter? I still have a good GPA so why does it matter compared to other students? </p>
<p>I don’t know how much this will help because I can say not all college admissions are the same. My university (University of Texas) considers both class rank and “rigor of secondary school record” as “Very Important.” It says the academic GPA is “Not Considered.” The standardized test scores and essays are both “Important” and the recommendation(s) are just “considered.”</p>
<p>I’m not precisely sure on the meaning of “rigor of secondary school record.” I think it has something to do with which courses (AP vs regular) are offered at your school and whether or not you chose to take AP courses that were available. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the competitiveness of your high school.</p>