A proposal to no longer calculate class rank has stirred controversy among parents, students and school officials.
Tonight the Albemarle County School Board will hear a presentation from the Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning, Dr. Billy Haun about a possible change in the class ranking of high schoolers. The board will also hear comments from community members about this issue before making a final decision at a later date.
Currently, ACPS ranks high schoolers based on their grade point average (GPA), meaning that all the students in a grade level class are ordered from the highest GPA to the lowest GPA. However, this rank is not provided on students’ transcripts.
Instead, students’ rank is reported by decile, which breaks a grade level class into groups of ten. A student’s decile is based on the GPA of their first three years of high school, which is why junior year is always stressed as the last year that truly counts. Sending this number allows colleges and universities to compare an applicant to the rest of their class.
Critics of this system argue that students who fall short of the top decile are negatively represented in front of selective universities. Since GPA is determined on a thousandth point scale, students whose GPA is possibly one one-thousandth of a point away from the top decile cut off are listed under the second decile on their transcript.
Haun addressed the public in a meeting at AHS on Sept. 19 to discuss these concerns, and a possible change in continuing to rank high schoolers in ACPS. The proposal calls for the schools to no longer report rank or decile to colleges.
Haun was aware that the proposal would generate controversy. “You have some parents who have kids in the top ten percent who are a little bit concerned, because they feel like their child has earned that ranking,” Haun said.
He, believes, however, that the majority of parents would rather see the school stop reporting rank.
To get a better understanding of the issue, Haun cited “other high performing systems,” such as Fairfax County, which has stopped reporting rank. “Fairfax is one of the largest school divisions in the country, and they don’t report rank, but their kids are still getting into the good colleges,” Haun said.
Albemarle parent, Fred Smyth, agreed with the proposal in his letter to the “Daily Progress” on Aug. 28. “Rankings are crude attempts to simplify complex academic records and often create impressions of meaningful differences between students when none exist,” Smyth wrote.
“While working in admissions for Georgetown University, I saw applicants from competitive public schools where more than 10 percent of seniors were tied at the top with the same grade point average. The first student below the tie, even if by a meaningless hundredth of a point, missed a top 10 percent ranking.”
Smyth went on to argue that a 20 percentile ranking is less appealing to colleges then an unranked student with the same GPA. And that, overall, there are more students who almost make it into the top decile, then there are students who are actually in the top decile.
Smyth’s beliefs coincide with current trends in higher education. According to the National Association of College Admissions Officers, in 1993, 42 percent of college admissions thought rank was important. In 2011, only 19 percent of college admissions thought rank was important.
Virginia Tech Associate Director of Admissions Juan Espinoza has noticed that the number of applicants reporting rank is decreasing each year. “We’ve adjusted our admissions process to fit the trend,” he said. “We’ll work through it if they have or don’t have it.”
Espinoza continued to say that there “is not one overall factor that determines if a student gets into Virginia Tech or not.”
Many selective schools will still publicize what percentage of students come from the top decile. According to the College Board website, 93 percent of admitted students at University of Virginia were ranked in the top decile.
Senior Associate Dean of Admission at University of Virginia Ryan Hargraves explained that this percentage is only based on the number of admitted students whose high schools reported rank. Hargraves said that if a student applies to UVa without reporting a class rank it is “not a detriment in the students’ application process,” and that rank is “not necessarily going to distinguish one [applicant] from the other.”
Espinoza also explained that VT is not determining admissions of a student solely based on the availability of class rank. “We are not going to penalize if a student doesn’t have rank.”
Overall, college admissions are viewing potential students as individuals that would contribute to an incoming class.
The School Board meeting tonight will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Albemarle County Office Building auditorium, and there will be opportunities for students and parents to voice their opinion on the future of class rank.