By Benjamin Fu
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006, The OG, news

HOW IMPORTANT is class rank? How do colleges react to high schools that do not use class rank?

These were among the questions discussed last week at the annual ACT State Organization Conference in Springfield. Director of College Counseling Lisa Micele attended the event and co-led the session “Class Rank: Will It Disappear Soon?” She made her presentation with counselors and administrators from Ball-Chatham School District 5, which has been debating whether its local high school, Glenwood, should drop class rank.

Representing a high school that does not use class rank, Micele discussed the pros and cons of ranking students and how class rank can affect college admissions.

“There really is no right or wrong answer,” Micele told the Gargoyle after the conference. “Schools considering this have to do what is best for their student body and culture. I know of schools who have tackled this issue and decided to actually keep rank. It is institution-specific.”

Several large Illinois public high schools have dropped class rank in recent years, including Naperville North and Central, Highland Park, Deerfield, and New Trier.

In high schools with class rank, top students are sometimes in intense competition with each other for the highest GPAs and many only take courses that are heavily weighted in order to increase their GPAs. Fractions of a point can mean the difference between being valedictorian and salutatorian or obtaining other coveted spots in a ranking system, such as graduating in the top 1 percent.

According to Micele, not using class or percentile ranking is generally a good idea for schools with high average test scores and GPAs, as well as for schools with a small number of students per grade.

“For example, let's say that the average GPA here at Uni for a given class is 3.6,” she said. “If a student had a 3.5, he or she would be in the bottom half of the class, which would look pretty bad on a transcript, although it is good work.”

Micele also said that doing away with class rank means that colleges need to understand the particular school better. In Uni's case, this is done with the school profile, which the Student Services Office sends to every college that Uni seniors apply to.

The profile gives information about the school, such as the fact that Uni neither ranks students nor offers AP classes. It also has class-specific information, such as average standardized test scores and the number of National Merit winners.

“The profile is key in the college admissions process,” said Micele. “It gives the admissions committee the information needed for an accurate contextual read of the student.”

According to Micele, not having class rank usually makes little difference to colleges. Even large state schools are able to rely more heavily on other factors when class rank is not available for evaluation.

“Colleges are seeing an increase in the number of applicants that come from high schools that do not rank their students,” Micele said. “However, it is impossible to predict if more schools will abandon rank. This is not something a school or district can tackle overnight.”

RELATED

— Time magazine on the movement to phase out class rankings: How Schools Are Pulling Rank