So I’ve always thought why not award Val based on grade points. Weighted for AP, add them all up don’t divide. Kid that did the most work at the school wins.
Over the past 6 years I’ve read many threads on this topic. In summary, there is probably no ranking system that is perfectly fair for all situations. But often it turns out ok anyway.
I knew about “the game” by sophomore year and still let DS take 10 unweighted music class. (I do regret not knowing that freshman Business class, assigned due to lack of open study hall spot, was a concern). Music makes him tick, and it was the right call. (Side note - he wove some really cool music stuff into his college engineering academics and EC).
I know my Dad was surprised at hs graduation that DS was not among the top 5% GPA kids that stood for recognition. He had missed it by a hair. Ditto for his pal that had many music and drama. classes… but despite that went on to an Ivy for college 
"Study halls considered more rigorous than unweighted classes? " Well to be more accurate, the unweighted classes reduce the bonus you get from weighted classes, while study halls do not. The problem is that you are dividing the bonus for rigor by the number of classes taken, so students with more credits get a lower bonus.
Students at your son’s school are taking 7 classes, so if they are using a +1 weighting system for all honors/AP core classes, a student with straight A’s in 5 core classes and 2 electives gets (55+24)/7 =4.714 GPA. The gamer student you described who takes a noncredit class instead of an elective gets (55+14)/6 = 4.833 GPA. And your poor hardworking son gets (55+34)/8 = 4.625 for his efforts. The difference between your son’s GPA and the gamer’s GPA is .208 At our school, if your GPA is about .22 below the top student you will not make the top 10% of the class. You can see how easily a top student can be knocked out of the top 10% for taking a lot of electives or earning extra non-weighted credits over and above the usual load.
Weighted GPA could determine where our S goes to college. 1st choice has an automatic full tuition scholarship for students with his SAT scores. With UW, he wouldn’t have a shot. However, almost all his classes have been AP or honors. If the college weights everything like the HS, he’s in.
OP, if your son is taking a rigorous schedule and doing well, I wouldn’t worry so much about class rank. The school is going to look at his transcript and see the results. Ranking is a nice feather in the cap, but it isn’t everything and really is there much difference between number 1 and number 10 at a large HS? I think colleges know this and look at the whole picture. There are lots of kids that do well in admissions who have non-weighted classes in their schedule such as yearbook, journalism, band, choir, drama etc. I think these things show a well rounded and interesting student. I do know a #1 ranked student who went out of her way to avoid such classes because she didn’t want to lower her GPA and lose her ranking. But I really doubt that was necessary, and it seems a shame that she may have missed out on an activity she loved because of it.
As for the idea of “addressing” this issue in the additional information section—I don’t think you should. They’ll see his transcript. They’ll understand the situation and it just seems like too much focus on his rank which is only a tiny bit of his application. (It may even come across as whining…)
BTW, UC’s do sort of address this issue. They make you recalculate your GPA according to their standards (not the HS standards), and limit the number of semesters of weighted grades–therefore, leveling the playing field because eventually you run out of the ability to weight classes. I wonder if HS should do something similar to this when ranking??? Hmmm…
My old high school avoided this nonsense by ranking anyone with a 4.0 or higher as rank 1. AP classes were weighted but nothing else was. I don’t remember ANYONE choosing their schedule based on how it would affect their rank and I knew quite a few people who went on to Ivies and the like.
This all so ridiculous that people do this. It does not help the top kid or gamer bc the colleges can see it when looking at his app, but it does hurt the nongamer bc the college cannot see how many of these kids are “above” the rank of the kid they are looking at!
S school does not weight. Does not rank. Now supposedly the school report (which will not give rank either) will show a grade distribution. So again, if you take no APs and get 97 and you are top 5, your adcom can see that. But the kid who did take honors and APs with a 95, his adcom sees his rigor, but not why he is out of the top 5 bc they can’t see the rigor above him.
So I have to figure, other than auto admits, it is largely ignored even if they say rank is important. Anything you have to take with a grain of salt has to be looked at lightly. I suspect when it is important, they mean you dont want to be 25-50% rank, (which can happen is very competitive HSs and still be a competitive applicant.
I think it is sad that (according to this thread) taking all of the AP classes available (honors and duel enrollment did not get weighted so were not taken) is considered gaming the system. I personally found them 100 times more challenging than band (flute player) So what message do all of the ideological parents send their kids? I guess the message I will send my kids one day is here is the system work within it to achieve your goals. If your goal is to be a great musician go for it! If your goal is to finish with the highest GPA and class rank go for it. Ironically those goals could conflict with each other. Which brings up an entirely different but no less controversial subject of ACT/SAT scores. Maybe that is the proper way to evaluate each kid. At least each kid has the exact same chance to score the same “no gaming”! Yes I know some kids went to rural schools vs college prep or this kid could not take ACT/SAT prep classes because they had no money or had band or swimming practice everyday so they were to tired. Thank goodness for the admission counselors holistic application scoring approach.
Community2605,
As far as learning vs achievement I know quite a few musicians that have had some crazy musical achievements that were accomplished in a similar manner to my academic achievements. So I am no sure how you can separate the two ideas. I would also argue that I love to learn as much as your son loves music and feel that many academically successful students and people in general would take offense to your idea that the two concepts are incompatible. I am pretty sure that engineering or med students are “learning” despite the fact that they have to “achieve” certain grades and milestones to continue in their field.
This is a great conversation I love philosophical debate.
@2017girl, my kids also love to learn but I find it odd that your love for learning includes taking as many study halls and as few classes that might hurt your GPA because they aren’t weighted. My kids took all the classes which interested them and packed in as much as they could, because they like to learn.
There is way too much obsession on CC over class ranking. Colleges are looking for students with genuine intellectual passion, not those who are adept at squeezing the last hundredth of a percentile out of their GPA. One of my kids was barely in the top 10% of her class, and got in everyplace she applied, including U of Chicago, Swarthmore, and Harvey Mudd. It usually seems to be the parents who are most obsessed. It just isn’t the most important thing. I can sympathize in a couple of states where class rank affects admission to top publics (Texas, for example), but mostly it is a misplaced focus.
@mathyone, what are you talking about? I went and reread my post and can not find where I said I took study hall. Im not even sure my school offered it. Why would I do that? No academic value when I could have taken another class to raise my GPA and get college credit (AP class) or if AP class not available just take an elective like band. I think it is interesting that you assume that I took lots of study halls to achieve my GPA (when in actuality I took none). Its almost like your condemning all of the kids with rigorous schedules.
@intparent, I agree with you completely. I would add, however, that perhaps it’s the COLLEGES who place too much weight on class ranking in some situations.
It’s not limited to U Texas (tho that’s an egregious example). There are many merit awards that have inflexible cutoffs (i.e., if you have a 27 ACT and are in the top 15% blah blah you get the Presidential/Trustees/fill-in-the-blank award). It’s not just an issue that affects the top 5% of the class - it affects the top 15 -20-25 who are desperately looking for merit money. That kid who is ranked in the top 16% because he didn’t “game” the system at his high school could be out thousands at some colleges.
Some merit award cutoffs are expressed as gpa cutoffs and not ranking percentages (i.e., if you have a 27 ACT and a 3.5 gpa…) but it’s the same thing. That kid with a 3.487 who didn’t game the system is similarly screwed.
That said, I supposed colleges have to draw the line somewhere. If they all turned to holistic merit awards, then we would lose the certainty of the automatic awards that I, for one, think are marvelous for applicants.
2017girl- The OP is the one who mentioned study hall.
mathyone was not responding to YOUR post.
I’ve never understood why high schools add points for honors classes anyway. My understanding is that, because each high school weights differently, the first thing colleges do is strip out the weighting anyway! And there is no need for the weight to indicate an honors-level class, because all they have to do is look at the transcript and they will see that, and the grade for the class.
@mathyone - Got it! #22 identifies the problem and describes it well.
@ClaremontMom - I think you’re right in #24. Class rank is just one way to measure a student for talent and drive. It won’t say everything there is to know about a student’s likelihood to be successful at their university, but neither is SAT/ACT score, teacher recs or EC’s. But together, they offer the best picture we have at the moment.
@2017girl - re: #27 - I would not call taking all the AP courses available gaming the system. I can’t speak for the other commenters, but my OP was talking about taking fewer courses than a full school day vs. what my son did, which was to double up on classes, taking MORE courses than a full school day could hold. And that’s what diluted his GPA. (BTW, since that is what I was talking about in the OP and your first comment indicated that you had attained the #1 position using many of the methods that I mentioned, that is probably why it was inferred that you took study halls.) I also think we might be talking about 2 different kinds of schools. I don’t think it’s possible for a student at my kids’ school to absolutely fill his schedule with AP classes. My son graduated with a full IB diploma and his weighted classes were only, maybe, 5 hours of the day. I tried to be clear that he didn’t REPLACE rigorous courses with music ensembles, but instead ADDED courses to a full, rigorous day. But maybe that didn’t come through.
" I was able to achieve the highest GPA and #1 class rank by doing all of the things you are highlighting. Taking AP’s and avoiding/minimizing none weighted classes, so I guess I am one of the kids you are talking about. " I was just responding to what you said about yourself. I took “avoiding/minimizing none weighted classes” to mean you’d choose a study hall instead. Perhaps I misunderstood your post but you also described yourself as “doing all of the things…highlighted”, the main point being made was kids taking fewer credits to artificially boost their GPA.
True story. Know of two kids who made a pact to become co-valedictorians. And it was going to happen, except that one of the kids went behind the other’s back and took 2 additional AP classes online senior year (for a total of 10 AP classes that year). The other student took 8 AP classes. AP and IB classes only are weighted; no weighting for honors and dual-enrollment classes.
In my school system, parents (and students) who are gunning for the top ranks insist upon taking at least one AP class in freshman year (often AP Human Geography). And often they are coming from one particular (select) middle school, where all students start taking high school credit courses in 6th grade. The more high school classes taken before 9th grade, the more availability to take those weighted classes in high school.
in my daughter’s HS kids were gaming the system by taking classes before freshman year over the summer (which would not count towards their HS GPA). These classes were not offered as honors for freshman so they were in effect dropping off their transcript non-weighted classes that most kids would have on their transcript to give them an edge.
Out of the gate in HS, my son never have had an opportunity to be valedictorian. Even with straight A’s, the fact that he took several UW classes his freshman year already put him behind with a class rank of 20 out of 600. Having finished HS with straight A’s in HS (of which 3 were A-'s), he ended up graduating ranked 16th. These results didn’t hurt him in the admissions process either.
My daughter starts HS this year. If she chooses to take drama all four years and doesn’t get any weighted credit, so what? I firmly believe that the pursuing the arts is just as critical for intellectual and personal development as any AP class offered in HS.
To all, just for transparency sake, I am a product of the Texas school system and currently attend UT Austin as a junior. Who would have thought Texas would take such a prominent place in this thread. I was accepted as an OOS due to a family move. But still took advantage of Texas’s emphasis on class rank and GPA even while attending OOS high school junior and senior year, knowing that they played a prominent part of the UT acceptance calculation even for OOS applicants. I don’t know about the whole take less classes during the day technique, it never occurred to me but I did take a required health class pass/fail to avoid having the none weighted A figured into my GPA.
@Community2605, you could not take all AP’s at my school either so some classes were non-weighted and less rigorous by default.
@momofmusician17, “I firmly believe that the pursuing the arts is just as critical for intellectual and personal development as any AP class offered in HS”
I don’t disagree, the same can be said for sports, student government and vocational classes. However entering college with 36 hours of credit is going to save me about $40000, so that is good.
I never thought of my techniques as gaming the system since all students had the same opportunity had they chosen to work their schedules in a similar manner.
Interesting discussion.