what if my HS does not rank students??

aprouddad
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:20:56 +0000

The method used to compute class rank can muddy the waters as well. A few months ago, when my S had his transcript as of jr year sent to WP, his rank was shown as 57/409. This morning, we attended a counseling session where all the latest progress reports, test scores, etc were reviewed. His rank is now shown as 40/412. Since no new grades have been reported, we asked why the rank had changed. The counselor said “Oh, when we ran the transcript reports over the summer, we used a different method to compute the rankings. The new numbers are correct”.

The two methods used to compute ranks are basically a choice the school makes as to how to deal with “ties” in GPA. Let’s say the top 5 GPA’s were 3.9, 3.9, 3.8, 3.8, and 3.7. Method #1 (used on the reports run over the summer) would report the ranks as 1, 1, 3, 3, and 5. Method #2 (the method they have always used in the past and the method used for the corrected rankings) would show the ranks as 1, 1, 2, 2, and 3.