Expert Admissions in the News

Over the past decade, fewer secondary schools are including class ranks on transcripts of postsecondary applicants. The impact that this has had on postsecondary admissions offices varies by college and university, according to the enrollment management officers Recruitment and Retention contacted recently.

Behind the disappearance

Secondary schools cite several reasons for leaving class rank information out of student data. Stacey Cunitz, director of admissions and college counseling at the Crefeld School in Philadelphia, said school size can come into play. “We are a very small high school—about 20 in a graduating class — so class rank makes absolutely no sense for us,” Cunitz said. 

In addition, some secondary schools, especially those that are highly rigorous or have selective admissions, say that ranking students doesn’t make sense when almost all students are high achievers. Margi Wieber, college counselor at Providence Academy in Minnesota, notes that only students who pass a rigorous admissions test can attend the academy, meaning that most of its graduates—not just the handful at the top of the class — are ready to succeed in college.

Some schools place the blame on increasing competitiveness for admission to selective colleges and universities. “High schools feel pressured not to report rank, essentially not to be entirely forthcoming, to preserve their students’ best chances for being admitted,”

said Bari Meltzer Norman, associate director of college counseling at The Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School in Florida.

Annual rankings from US News & World Report and other media outlets feed this competitiveness, said Lori McGlone, an independent college consultant with Coast to Coast Educational Consulting in New York. “Most selective colleges want to accept as many students as possible who ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school classes,” she said. But high achievers with good test scores, grades, and AP classes attending rigorous, competitive secondary schools could conceivably be ranked in the top 20 or 30 percent of their class, putting them at a disadvantage when they are compared to applicants from high schools that either don’t rank or that are less competitive.

Dan Rosenfeld, dean of enrollment management at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says that given this environment, he understands the pressure on secondary schools to withhold class rank information. But at UL-Lafayette, officials need class rank information to make scholarship decisions.

“When we call [to get a ranking], the counselors are smart enough and kind enough not to jeopardize the student’s status and will tell us,” Rosenfeld said. But, he noted, “I think that [college counselors] are selling college admissions people short. We know what a

challenging curriculum is.” 

How colleges are responding

The lack of class rank data is generally not an issue for students from high schools that have long relationships with a particular college. Admission officials know the rigor of a particular school’s curriculum and can make decisions accordingly.

In other situations, a transcript might withhold a class rank but still include other data offering a sense of how an applicant compares to his to her peers.

“Some high schools will give us decile rankings by grade point average, a scattergram with grades, or a bar graph that shows ranges of students by GPA,” said Eric Kaplan, dean of admission and financial aid at Lehigh University inPennsylvania. “Each of these examples

provides content without giving an exact rank.”

Another option is reconstructing class rank with available applicant information. For example, Marymount Manhattan College in New York recalculates all of its 2,000 or so applicants’ GPAs on a 4.0 scale and then applies its own weights for Advanced Placement

and International Baccalaureate courses.

“We apply a weighting system to put everyone on a level playing field,” said Jim Rogers, Marymount Manhattan’s dean of admissions. “That way we can get a better idea of the GPAs.” All honors courses get half of a quality point. IB or dual college enrollment classes get

one quality point. Recalculating GPAs also eliminates the reality of grade inflation.

The impact that withholding class ranks has on a particular college or university often depends on how that

school reviews admissions.

Duquesne University in Pennsylvania isn’t concerned about the missing class rankings. “When we…look at applicants, we look for depth and breadth of the curriculum and how the students have performed on standardized tests, extracurricular activities, and [other]

experiences,” said Paul-John Cukanna, executive director of admissions.

Cumulative GPAs and test scores determine the scholarship awards at Duquesne. “The reality is that standardized test scores are more heavily considered in some cases,” Cukanna said.

But the situation is more difficult for larger state institutions that must sort through a greater number of applications.

Starting in fall 2005, the University of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville began changing its admissions criteria to rely more heavily on ACT scores rather than class rank. And one of the requirements for a top scholarship is being changed from class rank to a 3.75 GPA.

“Class rank has become so competitive that I don’t think any longer that it’s a true measure of success,” said Boyd Bradshaw, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management. Of SIUE’s 10,000 applications, 500 or more typically don’t include class rank. The school

will also use unweighted classes for admissions decisions and weighted ones for scholarship awards.

Yet, while his peers have found ways to cope, the trend has Bill Brown, dean of admission and financial aid at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, concerned.

“A student’s high school class rank is a very good predictor of collegiate academic success,” he said. “In fact, for our college, it is a much better predictor than any combination of standardized test results. Without class rank, I’m afraid that we’ll be losing a very valuable tool.” 

—Mary Lou Santovec