I haven’t read through much of thread, so I may be repeating comments. That said, class rank probably matters less than you expect at most selective colleges. At typical highly selective colleges, most admits do not even submit rank. For example, 29% of this year’s entering students submitted rank at Yale and Princeton, 35% submitted rank at Stanford, and Harvard says they do not consider rank in their admission process. The decreasing portion of students submitting rank has led to a decreasing general importance of rank at less selective colleges than HYPS as well. In the NACAC survey 20 years ago, 43% of colleges said rank was “considerable importance”, making it one of the most important criteria for admissions decisions. In the most recent free survey (2013), only 13% of colleges said rank was considerable importance, making it less important than almost all other major factors, even less than demonstrated interest. It’s probably even lower today.
When class rank is submitted, I wouldn’t assume that means applicants need to be val/sal, or similar at a selective colleges. They may be using it more to get a sense of the strength of academic program and grading system, when combined with the transcript. For example, a 3.7 GPA is more impressive with a top 2% rank than at a high school where a large number of students have a 4.0. If you look through the decisions threads of this site, you’ll see at most highly selective colleges it’s quite common for valedictorians to be rejected, and lower than val/sal to be accepted. When I applied to colleges several years ago, I had a 4.0 GPA in many university classes taken out of HS, which did not contribute to my HS class rank, but didn’t do as well in the HS classes that I found less interesting/challenging. So I had excellent course rigor and respectable overall grades when my HS classes were combined with college classes, but less than top 10% rank in my HS class. This was good enough to be accepted to Stanford, MIT, and ivies; even though most higher ranked students in my HS were rejected.
You asked how to communicate a student’s exceptionality. Selective colleges with a holistic emphasis are not searching for the pinnacle of top rank/stats among the tens of thousands of high stat applicants. They are often instead searching for students who are likely to make a positive impression on the college and world beyond. This can be communicated through various activities out of the classroom, such as pursuing a passion and doing something quite remarkable in that field. There are countless possibilities.
