How much does the academy consider with class rank?

This is reassuring. Son goes to a huge high school (around 1000 in junior class, over 4000 in school). There are usually 15-20 valedictorian and same number of salutatorians. Large number of national merit scholars in each class. Son is in all AP courses and is right at 4.3 GPA but he is barely in the top 10%. I am glad to see academies take school size/competitiveness into consideration.
 
Hence, I'm suggesting our "average" ranked school district in MN is extremely good. It has not held back our kids. I propose they have tapped their maximum potential. In other words, the $56K Groton price tag could not add any value.

I don't think anyone is saying any particular school district is bad outright, rather depends what the students want, it could be consider good or bad.

Is attending UofMN on full scholarship and/or with college credits a local high school kid's maximum potential? All things being equal, I think the maximum potential for a hardworking, intelligent high school kid is attending an Ivy school, MIT, Stanford, Duke, or etc. with full scholarship or an appointment to SA. I am not a big fan of college rankings/reputation, but I am only a person and as long as the majority of the society cares about college reputation, it matters.

As discussed before that there are many factors involved in what college a high school student picks to attend. There are plenty of successful people that don't have a college degree or went to no name school. But the conventional wisdom is that graduating from a college with good reputation provides more opportunities on average.
 
She also noted on my record that I was disadvantaged due to coming into the program late

This was my point from the beginning on why this idea of posting "Am I at a disadvantage" or "My cgpa is 4.16 and top12%" means nothing, because we are not the GC at your school. We do not know the school profile. We do not know what her comments were when inputting their information required by the SA.

I get posters want feedback, but if you ask these types of questions, than take every answer with a grain of salt.

What I would say is I truly believe that applying to an SA or a ROTC scholarship you get more insight than kids that don't opt this route. The reason why is you actually are told that X % goes to PAR, Y% goes to ECs, Z% goes to Recs from the get go. Colleges traditionally will not release that info to such a great detail. SAs want cadets from across the country. Colleges don't care. Caveat IS colleges in many states will say X% must be IS. IE in VA, no more than 25-30% can be from OOS, but if 0% come from AK, ID, NM, MT, or RI,...oh well, so be it. Same is true for NC. UVA and UNCCH are considered public Ivies. However, don't full yourself. They all have their own algorithm they use and that is why they request a sealed transcript from the HS.
~ Pick any college, visit their website, and 10 will get you 20, somewhere on that site they will state stats for their incoming class. % that are NMSF, NMF. CGPA, avg SAT/ACT, % valedictorians/salutorians, class rank, AP/IBs etc. If they know those numbers, than you know that they are using that info, just like the SAs as part of their admissions. What you don't know is the % breakdown assigned to each aspect.
 
Last edited:
I have lived in Southeast Asia for 10yrs, Elders there hv a saying: You teach a kid 10 things, the average kid will pick up few out of 10, smart kid will pick up all 10, but an exceptional kid will pick up 10+ and learn more on his own. Another saying: average kid can't compete with smart kid: smart kid can't compete with talented kid: talented kid can't compete with a lucky kid. I wish all your exceptional & talented kid good luck:)
 
Is attending UofMN on full scholarship and/or with college credits a local high school kid's maximum potential? All things being equal, I think the maximum potential for a hardworking, intelligent high school kid is attending an Ivy school, MIT, Stanford, Duke, or etc. with full scholarship or an appointment to SA.
I don't think the UofMN is all that great (way too big IMHO) and taught by way too many TA's. That is my alma mater.

What I said was HS students (AP, IB etc) will not have the same rigor during 11th and 12th grade versus a full time 16 and 17 year old who is taking university classes. IMHO, the UofMN is testing someones full potential 9at age 16-17. BUT, their HS wasn't highly ranked. My point was many times you need to look deeper than a "competitive school".

I respect the Ivy's and premere schools. DS off to Stanford after USAFA.
 
My point was many times you need to look deeper than a "competitive school".

No disagreement from me as to look deeper than a "competitive school." But with about 15000+ initial applicants, multi-step process over 6 months to make 1400 offers, SAs don't have time nor resource to look deeper than a "competitive school."
 
My point was many times you need to look deeper than a "competitive school".

No offense, but I think you are holding onto this "competitive school" aspect only, and not hearing that they look at the school profile, which includes the rigor and how this is a wholistic approach.

I love my DS1 to the ends of this earth, but the boy was too smart for his own good. 34 ACT, top 7%, AP everything, Jump Start. etc. This kid on the 1st day of school where the teacher would hand out the% breakdown for grades (test, papers, CW/ HW), figured out how many CW/HW papers he didn't have to hand in to pull an A.
~ Love him, but he was lazy.

It bit him during the interview process because they too had the sealed transcript. One member asked about a certain class where he pulled a C (AP Calc) but has a 35M ACT to explain why the discrepancy. He fessed up and said, I did not apply myself.
~ He got the nom, but it was a wake up call. Finally, after years of Mom yelling at him, and saying it was disrepectful to not do the work, that somebody else besides me called him out on it.

Goes back to your earlier point about family values/morals. He is a great O2, and he was raised by a family that supported the school system. I was an educator from the time he was in 3rd grade until 8th. His sister is now a 9th grade teacher. His SIL and BIL are teachers. He was just a smart kid that was lazy because academically it was too easy.
 
But with about 15000+ initial applicants, multi-step process over 6 months to make 1400 offers, SAs don't have time nor resource to look deeper than a "competitive school."

Agreed, but I am going to add a twist.

What I keep thinking is that for the SAs they have a filter that Duke, Notre Dame, UMich, Cornell, or any state college does not have....nominations. SA number drops very quickly for offers if they do not have a nom. No filter needed for UVA, UNCCH. Stanford, MIT...just pay the application fee.

I do memory albums for all of my kids, and they include the admissions letters. In each letter it states the round off number of applicants and the number admitted. DD attended VT, the letter stated they had over 31K applicants. DS2 attends GMU and that letter says they had @33K applicants.

They also had @ 6-9 months to clear the table for the incoming class. PLUS, whereas, every SA knows right off the bat that it is free, traditional colleges will have to work into the equation the merit package.
~ UMD has what is called the Banneker Key scholarship, where they now interview the finalists.
~ TAMU will have to deal with their Corps of Cadets scholarship which is tied to paying IS instead of OOS.

Tying it back to the school again, that is going to be a player in the equation whether or not you go to an SA or a traditional college.

Sorry, but that is our society now. I am with Member, until we revolt in large numbers, you will not see a change in the system.
~ Back in 2010, VA parents did revolt. They were seeing that state colleges, including UVA/VT/VCU/GMU/JMU were accepting students with lower stats than IS students. State legislators came in and said WE hear you, and now will top off the% that can come OOS, which would include international.
 
No offense, but I think you are holding onto this "competitive school" aspect only, and not hearing that they look at the school profile, which includes the rigor and how this is a wholistic approach.
I realize the system can never be perfect and is MUCH more balanced that looking at one parameter. Overall, I think they do a great job picking the right students. I have no qualm what-so-ever about a college realizing there is more to a simple class rank (some schools have tougher competition) and they need a way to address that. My point was one fold. The caliber of education that a student receives has very little to do with how many people go to Ivy's. So long as it is a low rating in the selection algorithm, I do see the value.

In short, I am convinced that our kids ended up where they are (brain power) because of the K-12 schools they went to and it had nothing to do with the quantity of admitted Ivy's. I am not writing it off as "smart kids are smart" no matter where they go to K-12. Nothing more, nothing less. :)
 
Agreed, but I am going to add a twist.

What I keep thinking is that for the SAs they have a filter that Duke, Notre Dame, UMich, Cornell, or any state college does not have....nominations. SA number drops very quickly for offers if they do not have a nom. No filter needed for UVA, UNCCH. Stanford, MIT...just pay the application fee.

The nomination drop only happens after January 31st, the screening process starts August/September (for SLE kids even earlier).
 
Ahh... Well, all this talk about class rank. APs...

My kids were home schooled, then went to local 3rd tier U for some lab sciences and upper Math, and participated in a charter cyber school, graduating 1&2 in a class of over 900, four of whom they'd ever met, 30 of whom went on to any 4-year college.

So - yes, your high school program matters, your ECs matter, your grades and rank certainly matter. But just as important is what you do with what's on your plate that you cannot change (totally correct, Christ Corp!). You can't change where your parents live, usually can't change your school or your academic program. You can take extra coursework (duh, it's available on the computer and pretty cheap now), you can work work work at those things you love.

Be the very best YOU, the VERY BEST Y.O.U.
 
Most here know I am in wyoming. Been an alo here for a number of years. We have towns where the population is about 200. We have schools, that have kids from numerous towns attending, and the graduating class is still only around 100-200. Schools where NO kid has ever gone to an ivy or similar school, and probably never will. Yet,me have had kids from this "Podunk" schools, get an appointment to the Air Force and other military academies.

So, I go back to an earlier statement I made. It doesn't matter what school you attend. Unless you are in 8th grade and want to discuss the option of picking a different school because you have the choice, your school is what it is. You have no say in it, and the academies are,very good at looking at your school profile and determining what options you had, and did you make the most of those opportunities. Just like the hundreds of home schooled kids who went to the academies.

So stop worrying about what you can't control or change. If you think you're at a disadvantage some how, then take community college classes on the side or in the summer. Take online classes. Other than that, stop stressing. You can't change your school. And for all those who say their kid attends a "Competitive School", that too is subjective. Competitive vs what? You can't answer that, so don't. Is it competitive because it's private? Or because it has the complete IB program available. Again, it comes down to a simple formula that you will be scored on. What classes, sports, extra curricular, etc. did you have the opportunity to participate in; which of those did you take advantage of; and how well did you do in them. If you take the most challenging opportunities available and excel, you will be scored accordingly. I have seen plenty of kids get an appointment who didn't have the IB program or many AP classes available. And between taking the most challenging classes they could, playing what sports they could, doing what clubs they could, while working on the ranch or part time job to help the family's income, they were able to get an appointment.

Worry about what you can affect and stop worrying about things you can't.
 
Most here know I am in wyoming. Been an alo here for a number of years. We have towns where the population is about 200. We have schools, that have kids from numerous towns attending, and the graduating class is still only around 100-200. Schools where NO kid has ever gone to an ivy or similar school, and probably never will. Yet,me have had kids from this "Podunk" schools, get an appointment to the Air Force and other military academies.
I agreed with every word you typed. The only reason I chimed in was to possibly help change a perception. K-12 school ratings are studied hard by many parents. They convince themselves that their children are getting a better education because of it. Maybe or maybe not. No doubt it is true if you compare an inner city school that has so many distractions or some chronically underfunded programs (or entire states which I will leave nameless) where the teachers are overworked and underpaid. In some places, you will get a substandard education and your kids educational potential will be compromised. That doesn't mean they won't do great things but rather they fell short of additional greatness. :)

I did well in stats. I understand that average test scores can be semi-meaningless so long as you are in a fully funded district. Even if a significant (30-40%) of the student body doesn't care too much. The key element for uncompromised K-12 education is that you need a strong pocket of students that do care and kick butt. In our HS, about 150-200 of the 700 are fairly passionate while another 25% are in a tough spot (mixed demographics).

I grew up poor and went to the same HS as our kids and got very little parent involvement. The word "college" was never spoken and I didn't really think about it till the 12th grade. Our family culture meant that some of my brothers dropped out of HS and I was the only one out of 6 that went to college. It took me years to figure this out by myself so I didn't graduate from college till I was around 28. Yet several of my schools graduates became over achievers and are literally household names today. Their family culture expected performance and they delivered. So the incredible tools were in place yet 35% of the student body tested poorly on the standardized tests which is a very typical number all across MN.

If I'm right, the education is tie between a highly ranked private HS in MN like Blake where 1/3 of their class goes to prominent colleges. I propose they simply shed the underachievers and the parents have the money and motivation to chase the college brand names. That HS has relationships with school insiders. If your goal is to go to an Ivy, then by all means spend $15K a year and send your kid to Blake. I'm not taking anything away from them. More often than not, when you do send your kid to a private, you are convinced you have a better education. By saying this in public, you are suggesting to others that they have an inferior school. I'm not saying anybody here has that attitude. :)

Back to the SA selection process. This average HS that our kids attended where near zero ever go to Ivy's had several students that went to a SA. They have done very well (as measured by class rank). I don't think these are outliers. I come from a very fiscally conservative district that places little value on going to an Ivy. Therefore the "best and the brightest" often times chose a SA versus an Ivy. All the while about 1/2 of the student body whose parents are in the trades stay in the trades. If we are being honest, the trades on average pay higher than most college grads. It's why our town has the 2nd or 3rd highest average income in MN and only 25% are college grads. I diverge...

To be clear, there WILL be a strong correlation to a great education and how many go to Ivy's. But that isn't the litmus test nor is looking at the percentage of students that go to college. Hence you need to look deeper and I factually know USAFA does.

As you might guess, I'm a wee bit over passionate on the college topic. I've heard way too many parents tout how incredible their private schools are by reciting average test scores. Our neighbor pulled their kids from the local HS and sent them to a private. A few times, they trashed talked the local HS. Didn't they realize I was 3 feet away? I had to smile and know that people subconsciously look down at our HS because of its average ranking. But on the internet, I can vent a little. I'll get off my soapbox now. :oops: But I enjoyed the conversation.
 
Last edited:
My local public school graduates about 35 to 40 (yes, 35 to 40) kids every year, being the smallest school district in the state (by geographical region and by population). There are no AP/IB or even "Honors" courses available there.There has never been a kid who attended any ivy, or any top-tier college. We knew going in that our kids needed more (to stay out of trouble) and so, as parents, we chose the option of homeschooling, then (also) cyber-schooling, then (also) local college for those things where they really needed a big boost. Not a path for everyone, it paid off for my kids.

ChristCorp is right. The academies will look at what you have done with what options you had. A kid growing up on a ranch in Wyoming is not going to have some of the advantages of a kid growing up in Fairfax, Virginia. And vice versa.
 
Back
Top