Percentile Ranking

[WIT84]

We have a unique situation and are looking for advice. My DD attended a large public high school (approx. 3000 students) her freshman and sophomore year. She was enrolled in all available Pre AP and AP courses and received quality points in those courses. Her class size at the time was approximately 750 students.

She was offered the opportunity to transfer to a public IB high school at the start of her Junior year, which she accepted. This school has been nationally recognized by several well known periodicals, and is ranked in the top .0017 of all public high schools in the US. Academics are extremely competitive, 100% acceptance to upper tier universities and a class of top students. The IB school does not recognize quality points for transfer students, which has negatively impacted my DD GPA by 2.5 points. The school calculates GPA out 3 decimal places (9x.xxx) to provide sufficient grandularity between students. The school does not rank students other than to determine the Valedictorian and Salutorian.

USMA admissions did require the guidance counselor to submit a percentile ranking,and my DD is in the top 30% of her class and her graduating class size is approximately 50 students.When comparing her placement with the Profile for the Class of 2016, 72% of the entering class were in the top 20% of their class. We beleive this may negatively impact on our DD's application.

Any insight or advice is welcomed.

 

[buff81]

The Guidance counselor should have also submitted a profile of the school, which tells WP how competitive the school is - which basically is determined by the % of the school's graduates that go on to attend 4 year colleges.

In cases where schools do not rank (which tend to be the more competitive schools), WP will use the candidate's ACT/SAT scores to rank them.
Hopefully, she has great scores.
Many schools don't rank and WP knows how to handle the candidates that go to schools that don't rank.

If your FFR does not know of this situation with your DD, I would reach out to them so that they can go to bat for your DD with the Admissions folks at WP.

 

[WIT84]

Sir,

Thank you for the prompt response. I believe the guidance counselor did provide a school profile, and our FFR is aware of the situation. ACT scores are competitive with the 2016 Profile, she is waiting on the results from the October exam which we hope will be posted next Tueday.

 

[buff81]

Unless her ACT scores are high (30 and above), I would suggest that she also take the DEC 1 SAT.
This is a competitive year for admission and seeing as her academic qualification is falling heavily on her test scores, she should take both ACT and SAT.

And, I'm female.

 

[FinFan]

DS had the same type of HS IB (magnet school where everyone in the county wanted to go for the IB program) education. It is a large HS in the South in a very competitive district and state. His HS class was 650 students. But his IB class (class inside the class was 200). So when his class rank was calculated he was around 30% overall.

He was constantly asked by MOCs interviewers how come he was so low in class rank even though he had a decent gpa and act/sat scores. We feel that he was impacted by his class rank because of his competitive HS composition. In addition, I saw what the HS sent up for the HS composite and it took the whole school into consideration and not just the IB students. 100% of the IB high school students from his class went to a 4 year university. Many went to IVYs but the information talked about the "whole" class.

So, the long and short of it, I know that the IB curriculum was the best education that he could have gotten and it has definitely prepared him for college, but I am not sure that it bodes well for the admission criteria used at the academies...just my .02.

 

[buff81]

FinFan-
Your situation may be a little different.
WIT84's school didn't rank. Can't really tell if your son's school ranked. You gave a %, but you didn't state if they also ranked. WIT84's school only gave a %.

WP will adjust the class rank of candidate's that go to competitive schools, as determined by the school profile.

WP has seen just about every situation imaginable with High Schools (rank, don't rank, IB, Magnet, Honors, etc.) and they will evaluate each candidate fairly.

If you feel as though your son/daughter has a particularly different situation, best to let the FFR know so that they can best represent your son/daughter.

 

[WIT84]

Buff 81,

Sorry for the gender error. She has taken the SAT a couple of times, she has consistently performed better taking the ACT. She is waiting for her results from the October ACT exam, I think she is planning to take it again in December as it will be her last opportunity. Her superscore is a 29, so hopefully the results from the October exam pushes her over the top and December can be used to focus on her lowest individual score.