Is this high school hurting its students?

speihei
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:11:34 +0000

Public high school in the northeast.

No class rank per se. At the end of junior year, the students are given a weighted GPA and a bar graph.

There are 500 students in the class.

10 students fall into the highest bar (2%)
15 more students fall into the next bar (top 5%)
50 (!) fall into the next bar (not top 10%)

For the top two groups, the system is fine. All can say “top 5%” and back it up with data. But for the top students in the next level, they cannot even say “top 10%”.

Simple question: is this school causing students in the 5+% to 10% grouping problems when they apply to highly selective colleges and universities?