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With hopes of getting accepted into prestigious colleges, students often go to extreme measures to increase their class rank. But is one number really worth the hard work and stress?
Yes. Class rank is a measure of how a student’s performance compares to other students in his or her grade in a particular school. According to CollegeBoard, most large state universities rely on class rank when sorting through the large amount of applications they receive, however, for many selective private colleges, the ranking is declining in significance.
This decrease in class rank importance is because over half of all high schools in the country no longer report student rankings, according to a recent statement by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. A March 2006 “New York Times” article explained that some college admissions officers disapprove of ranking because it causes them to “make less informed decisions or overemphasize results on standardized tests.”
Heritage releases a student’s percentage, whether they’re top 5 percent, top 10 percent, etc., but does not give a student’s exact placement number.
This one number can either be a great help to a student or penalize the ones who don’t make the cut into the top 10 percent, causing them to be overlooked by top colleges. Although this brings on pressure to students, it also gives them the motivation to strive to be at the top of the class by taking higher level courses such as AP and Honors, and getting higher grades. Both these factors can boost a student’s GPA, along with their class rank.
What do AHS students think?
“No, it’s not, because regardless of rank, people can still get into schools they want via other aspects of their high school career, like grades, scores and ex- tracurricular activities,”
-CJ Wittus
“I like that our school doesn’t rank because it makes grades less stressful,”
-Alan Sebag
“No, class rank is just a number no one will re- member. It’s irrelevant,”
-Matt Kronick
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