School does not rank students.

A

alexlocnj

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So my in my student handbook it says that my school does not rank students in an attempt to make everyone feel equal and avoid a competitive atmosphere in the school. I honestly agree with what the administration says on it, and did not really care until I began looking into the Naval Academy and seeing how important it is for admission. So will my school not ranking students have a major impact on my application? If so will there be anything that will be look at with more weight to compensate for the missing stat, such as GPA or test scores? I take honors classes with some APs blended in on the subjects I am stronger in (History and Sciences). I get mostly As, with some Bs in my weaker subjects (Math and Spanish). I haven't calculated my GPA since this semester ending, but I believe it is somewhere in the 3.55-3.6 range. Thanks, Alex
 
My ds school also does not rank. They do have a letter that states they do not rank make sure you turn that in with your transcripts especially for your Nom Requests. This year my ds school is sending 1 to AFA 2 to AFA Prep and 1 to NA
- clearly they did something right
 
DS's school does not rank either. He was a Chief Jr. Marshal this year so he knows he is either 1 or 2 (we are pretty sure 2) so he is putting that on his applications. That being said I spoke directly to the college counselor and explained the weight the SA's seem to put on class rank. She said she could write it up in a way to say "DS is in the top 2% of his class of 70" . That way she is not breaking school policy but it is straightforward that he is either 1 or 2.
 
Not an uncommon situation. At all. Schools are increasingly not ranking. If I remember correctly, DS estimated on apps that asked for it, as prompted.

One thing you will come to realize is that the military has been at this a LONG time. There is little that they haven’t seen. Even if you think you have a unique situation. They have already ‘been there, done that’.

Good luck to you!!
 
If your school does not rank, then they will use your ACT/SAT grade to estimate a ranking. So in other words it doubles the value of the SAT/ACT score. Schools try to not rank in search of some notion of equality for all. What they in effect do is pass the buck to another way to differentiate on student from the next. Anyway max out those ACT/SAT scores.
 
USNA is very familiar with this situation. You can’t control it, so not much to worry about. Plenty of homeschoolers apply and get into USNA each and they don’t have a class rank. USNA’s admissions website has some info on this, https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/HS-Transcript-Instructions.php. There is also a lot of information on this forum about class ranking as this pops up several times a year each application cycle. There are 1000s of applicants in this situation, focus on what you can control.
 
If a school doesn’t rank they use ACT/SAT scores to compute a rank? Is this known or speculation? How would this work? Do they get a distribution of test scores from the school and rack & stack them?
 
davejean90 said:
If your school does not rank, then they will use your ACT/SAT grade to estimate a ranking. So in other words it doubles the value of the SAT/ACT score.
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^ What is the source of this information ...I have never heard it from a USNA Admissions Source ? Don't disagree with the overall guidance to max out SAT/ACT, but I am suspect of the statement that it "doubles the value of the SAT/ACT score". No one knows USNA's WCS algorithm, or how ACT/SAT is weighted vis-a-vis Class Rank.

NavyHoops said:
USNA is very familiar with this situation. You can’t control it, so not much to worry about.
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^ This .... USNA asks for a School Profile along with Transcript, and knows that many schools don't rank. They have been dealing with it for years, understands its is a factor outside of the Candidates control, and it doesn't hurt or help the Candidate.

alexlocnj said:
school does not rank students in an attempt to make everyone feel equal and avoid a competitive atmosphere in the school.
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davejean90 said:
Schools try to not rank in search of some notion of equality for all
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> Wonderful concept, but it doesn't prepare kids for the reality of life. The desire to make everyone feel good about themselves ignores the fact that almost everything in life involves some level of competition. Some people are naturally more competitive, with a desire and drive to get ahead. It's a good thing, and it's better to teach our kids about how to compete fairly, and check the competitive urge when appropriate, than to pretend it doesn't exist.
 
ders_dad said:
If a school doesn’t rank they use ACT/SAT scores to compute a rank? Is this known or speculation? How would this work? Do they get a distribution of test scores from the school and rack & stack them?
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You pretty much got it - most schools report class profiles with SAT scores vs GPA etc so colleges have some idea how to normalize vs other applicants.
Grade inflation is rampant everywhere and way way too many kids have [unearned] 4.0 GPA. Standardized tests are the great equalizer.

Not ranking is becoming SOP at many schools. Don't agree with the philosophy but nobody cares what I think; all I did was raise 2 extraordinarily high achieving kids who are head and shoulders above their peers. I'm sure the public school administrators know better.
 
ders_dad said:
If a school doesn’t rank they use ACT/SAT scores to compute a rank? Is this known or speculation? How would this work? Do they get a distribution of test scores from the school and rack & stack them?
Click to expand...
Definitely the way USMA calculates rank. ACT/SAT calculate distribution of all test takers. Score in the top X% and your class rank is top X%. Helps those who score high on test and go to more competitive high schools. Hurts those who score low and go to less competitive high schools.

I assume USNA uses same or similar system.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
> Wonderful concept, but it doesn't prepare kids for the reality of life. The desire to make everyone feel good about themselves ignores the fact that almost everything in life involves some level of competition. Some people are naturally more competitive, with a desire and drive to get ahead. It's a good thing, and it's better to teach our kids about how to compete fairly, and check the competitive urge when appropriate, than to pretend it doesn't exist.
Click to expand...

It's not intended to protect every kid from every negative contact with the world, it's mostly for very good schools where there's not an average distribution of top students. In a normal school there's a fairly standard bell curve distribution of talent, so top 10% or 20% will include most of your best kids. In the case of a magnet school or some other unusually excellent academy you'd be missing some outstanding kids by not reaching all the way down past 50%. There are public high schools with 40 or more National Merit Scholar Finalists. At the very highest end, for example, there's a sizable school in TX with a third of the class NMS finalists and another third Commended Scholars.

But of course that's not the basis for some applications of this practice. There are only so many outstanding schools that have to raise the profile of their middle tier. There are far more places where they want to raise the middle for their own benefit so they obfuscate rank and point at inflated GPAs and ultra-coached test scores. It's still a crazy competitive environment, but any benefit to the kids is ancillary.
 
DS' school does not provide class rank either; however, they send 2-3 kids every year to Service Academies and they seem to have this process figured out. I believe they provide percentage guidance to the SA such as "Candidate is top 9% of class of 300" or they may give an exact rank 27/300. We are not sure but both the counselor and principal assured my DS they will communicate appropriately to the SA. And obviously, the SA's know what they are doing and how to navigate the GPA/Class Rank rubric.

Also, as an example of why class rank is more important than GPA, DS met a kid at SLE that had a 6.4 GPA! How is that even possible - 6.4? 6.4 out of what? That is an example of ridiculous grade inflation and why SA's cannot rely on GPA.
 
StPaulDad said:
It's not intended to protect every kid from every negative contact with the world, it's mostly for very good schools where there's not an average distribution of top students. In a normal school there's a fairly standard bell curve distribution of talent, so top 10% or 20% will include most of your best kids. In the case of a magnet school or some other unusually excellent academy you'd be missing some outstanding kids by not reaching all the way down past 50%. There are public high schools with 40 or more National Merit Scholar Finalists. At the very highest end, for example, there's a sizable school in TX with a third of the class NMS finalists and another third Commended Scholars.

But of course that's not the basis for some applications of this practice. There are only so many outstanding schools that have to raise the profile of their middle tier. There are far more places where they want to raise the middle for their own benefit so they obfuscate rank and point at inflated GPAs and ultra-coached test scores. It's still a crazy competitive environment, but any benefit to the kids is ancillary.
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This is exactly how it was explained by our school. And it makes sense to me. Crazy to think that an above 4.XX can be less than top 10 or 20 pct of a graduating class in a difficult college prep school.
 
My DD's school does not rank either. However, she spoke with her guidance counselor and they calculated and submitted her rank for this unique situation.
 
Do high schools who don't rank students academically to avoid 'competition' .............still participate in varsity athletics?
 
As long as you do well on the ACT/SAT, then this is not a problem. When the schools send your transcript in, they also send a school profile, and the academies can see the type of school you go to and can get a sense of where you would rank by looking at your grades and comparing it to the distribution of grades for your class. Our kids' school did not rank and they came from very small graduating classes. This did not seem to be a detriment to them getting into academies and getting ROTC scholarships.
 
Many high schools do not rank and, instead, use the Latin designations to indicate academic achievement: cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude. Academics has always been about scholarship, never competition.
 
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