<p>Hi everyone! I go to a medium sized high school in eastern. It is predominately upper class and is known in the area for academics. Our school is currently deciding whether or not to continue class rank. The main goal of my counselors is to get as many students in to iowa/northern iowa/iowa state as possible, and dropping class rank would help this because the iowa universities require a top 50 % rank. This is a disadvantage to our students because the median gpa is 3.0 while at another school in our area it is 2.5. Therefore several kids in my school who are financially and academically able to suceed in college may not get in. I support this but I’m not sure whehter or not this will hurt me. Im currently ranked 8/300…so is it to my advantage to get rid of class rank?</p>
<p>depends on what colleges you are looking for
ivies? yes
below that? no</p>
<p>Im not looking at ivies but I am looking at some more selective schools such as Northwestern and WashU. Is my class rank good enough that it would help me at these schools?</p>
<p>It should absolutely rank and your rank is great, so don’t sweat that requirement</p>
<p>ranking simply doesn’t make sense at a lot of schools, in particular those which offer a wide range of courses. some courses are harder than others, and there’s no way weighting could make up for that.</p>
<p>at my school and many like it, we do not rank because ranking would be in no way valid.</p>
<p>I hate that my school ranks. Our valedictorian has a 4.25ish currently. I have a 4.05ish and I’m ranked 53rd out of 550 students. That’s just completely insane. Plus we also have an IB school who are ranked with us, and by default they have higher GPAs (often for less work) because they could start getting quality points their sophomore year with APs when the rest of us were prohibited until 11th grade and were stuck with AP prep classes.</p>
<p>Rankings don’t make sense to me in very academically cutthroat environments.</p>
<p>In my opinion, rank is a necessary evil. I personally don’t like it, feeling as if I have to stay on top of my game all the time if I plan to go anywhere great. People pester you all the time about it, and it’s made into such a big deal (People have almost cried). But then again, I know that this is for my own good, an opportunity for me to at least stand out academically. So, being the pragmatic twit that I am, I say your school should continue class rank for your benefit.</p>
<p>i go to a private christian school. my brother has a 4.0 overall and is ranked 30th. i have a 3.4 and im ranked 75th. and we only have 100 students. so yea i look bad on paper.</p>
<p>i go to a school where my graduating class this year is 80 kids. We have an average ACT score of 26. This is high, and the top 10% (of which I am not a member … its 8 kids) are the only portion of the class who are ranked.</p>
<p>This works out well. If you’re top 10%, you are shown as such, if not, because only 8 kids are, then no harm done.</p>
<p>I have a 3.6 uw 4.3 w and am 39th - that is like 50%ile if CMU knew that I wouldn’t have been accepted.</p>
<p>We are still competative, so much so that kids left at the first semster of senior year to become (in one case) valedictorian, and top 10%, at a school not a mile away.</p>
<p>Ranking the top ten percent…what a great idea…then the rank only exists for those who will benefit by it…thus the counseling system is doing its best to benefit all students and reward them for their hard work for their hard work…which should be its goal. Im going to the next board meeting, where our school will decide this, and I will bring that up. Thanks! Does anyone find any downfalls to this system?</p>
<p>No, other than the fact that it gives students the message that blood-thirsty competition is more important than the learning process. But then again, competition is a crucial, integral part of life later on, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Wow. A “predominantly upper-class school” in Iowa?</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of it. lol.</p>
<p>haha by predominately upper class I mean relative to the surroundings…So I would say on average it would be more upper-middle class lol</p>