I live in Overland Park, KS in a very good school district with high ranking high schools....Blue Valley School District.

We don't rank students anymore starting with class of 2020. Is this a trend? They say it's because it puts smart kids with great s ores at disadvantage if they aren't top 10% or top 25%.

What about admin to A&M? Are Texas high schools thinking about not ranking students?

It does seem to be a trend. As with anything, there are some positives to stopping the class ranking system, but it also brings some negatives.

I tend to be on the side that there should be less emphasis on class rank. There is just such a huge discrepency in the quality of schools out there. I know the kids can't choose, per se, and shouldn't be punished for being in a lesser school, but you just have so many kids that work hard to good schools that are at a disadvantage.

While I definitely agree not all schools are equal (not even close) and clearly grading can be subjective, but eliminating competition is a mistake.

My kids are still elementary and they have eliminated grades. They have a 1-4 system of meets standards.

Quito said:

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My kids are still elementary and they have eliminated grades. They have a 1-4 system of meets standards.

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Wait. What?

Yes, no longer get A, B,C, D or F

They get 1-4 based on 3 being "The Standard"...there's not a chance to get a 4 unless the there are questions that are "above standard".

It's very confusing, but long story short, no A Honor Roll, no straight A's, no academic awards at all.

I'll be. That would take some getting used to. My concern with it is rooted in your previous comment:

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but eliminating competition is a mistake.

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CPjr is off to a good start as engineering freshman '23 this semester. He has never disappointed me academically and I believe that it all stems from a competitive environment when he was in elementary & middle school. He was blessed to have circle of buddies who competed as fiercely in the classroom as they did on the basketball court. It was a friendly competition, but they feverishly chased reading points, extra credit, and sought new challenges to set themselves apart. Luckily, he has carried that attitude with him since.

I know for each story like that there is probably someone who fell behind, got discouraged, and gave up. I can't deny that - but it does worry me that a setting where it's hard to distinguish yourself from 'standard' would lead to 'getting by' being the goal.

I am not an educator or child psychologist, so I may be full of it. I'm just thankful for the spark that I saw in CPjr and have followed his classmates closely through the years. I think they're competition definitely benefitted all of them.

Absolutely agree.

I have 3 elementary kids that do well (as far as I can tell given the grading system). I coach a lot of youth sports and can tell first hand that once they started keeping score in sports, the interest and desire to play went up exponentially. Once there was an actual scoreboard where the saw each bucket, run or TD, it went up even more.

Competition drives us and that's who we are.

This is why test scores (SAT, ACT) are becoming the de facto standard more than ever. My advise, do a ton of test prep work....

BoDog said:

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This is why test scores (SAT, ACT) are becoming the de facto standard more than ever. My advise, do a ton of test prep work....

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Yeah, I agree. It's a real double edged sword.

My son (recently accepted into A&M Engineering) scored very high on test. His rank is just outside of the top 10 because he has strong ECs. He's very happy and will most likely go to A&M, but his first choice was the school in Austin. Their system is really screwed up.

My kids school is one of these highly competitive suburban schools and it's served him well. The problem wtih going straight class rank is that there are many kids at his school that have zero ECs and literally do nothing but study. I think we all agree that doing nothing but grade grubbing isn't the be all end all, either. Then on the other spectrum, you have kids that are really good test takers and don't have as good a work ethic as others and may not have strong grades.

There's got to be a balance of academics and being a well rounded human.

I know it's tough job for admissions folks because they have to serve many masters...

That is why I don't understand taking away academic admit. Academic admit rewards the kid from a competitive high school who is NOT a grade grubber, who does other extracurriculars which may result in his rank not being quite so high, but who scores well on the SAT. My son got in this year as an academic admit in the last year of academic admit. He goes to a smaller HS, plays a ton of sports, other activities, but just top quartyer. Many of the top 10% kids don't do anything but take all weighted classes, take certain weighted fine arts, etc. He knew he had to make 1360 on SAT and did and got in...but after this year a kid like him would probably be blinn team or PSA.


Top 10 percent needs a minimum SAT as well. That would solve a lot of this. Make it 1200 or something like that.

My son is in the same boat. Got auto admit due to test scores.

Agree with your post 100%.

I think having a minimum on the top 10% or 6% for tu would go a long way to evening things out.

Last year Frisco ISD stopped ranking past the top 10%. Students outside the top 10% are only told in what quartile they fall.
Our FISD high schools are highly competitive, so I guess it's a good thing to stop w ranking? I think it's becoming the trend in TX.

So much hate for the high performers. It has been my experience that the top performers are more involved in ECs than the lower performers. I know of no study that shows ECs are inversely related to class rank.

I believe that if you studied valedictorians, and other highly ranked students, you would find they are smarter, more disciplined, and better time managers than the rest.

Reviews are terrible for students and parents. Reviews are often used to social engineer campuses and can be gamed by lying on applications/essays. Set objective standards for which students can prepare.

Deciding admissions based only on the SAT is a bad idea. Students would shift from focusing on both HS performance and SATs to focusing only on SATs.

Solid use of post #2. Blue parachute awarded.

Was at the admissions talk last week. If I heard correctly, if your school doesn't do a class rank, A&M will assign them a quartile. It sounded like A&M would prefer a class rank or student would not qualify under the top10% admit, and would have to go through the holistic route.

Not sure how a "quartile" is assigned. Let's say class of 400. Student could be # 5 or #94 and would be looked at the same - as a quartile 1?

The Real Dude said:

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So much hate for the high performers. It has been my experience that the top performers are more involved in ECs than the lower performers. I know of no study that shows ECs are inversely related to class rank.

I believe that if you studied valedictorians, and other highly ranked students, you would find they are smarter, more disciplined, and better time managers than the rest.

Reviews are terrible for students and parents. Reviews are often used to social engineer campuses and can be gamed by lying on applications/essays. Set objective standards for which students can prepare.

Deciding admissions based only on the SAT is a bad idea. Students would shift from focusing on both HS performance and SATs to focusing only on SATs.

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The only thing I would say to this is that at some of the larger schools, ECs can and are very demanding time wise for the kids. And within these schools, there are a significant number of kids that their ONLY concern is class rank. So in some of these schools, you have kids that are strong students and are diverse and excel in ECs, but will suffer in class rank as it relates to kids that only care about rank.

I don't think the tests are the be all end all, but a strong test score, strong grades and solid ECs should give a school a good indication of a well rounded student.

Centerpole90 said:

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The only thing I would say to this is that at some of the larger schools, ECs can and are very demanding time wise for the kids

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I believe this is an unfair attempt to lessen the accomplishment of small town kids. I understand the argument for many students at larger schools and how the balance of EC time vs school time can impact admission. I agree with the rest of your post word for word starting at 'within'.

However, there are only so many hours in the day and a kid who fills those hours volunteering, with sports, church, or other leadership activity HERE is the making the same commitment to those ECs as a kid who fills those hours with the same activities THERE. Some larger schools limit students to one sport while at small schools you often see the same kids playing every sport - but now they're EC is worth less because the school is small? I'm not buying that. I promise you that small town schools and communities can place just as much demand for EC time and commitment on kids as any larger school.

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I have real mixed emotions about the auto admit for fill in the blank class rank.

I agree w you that small school kids could be at a disadvantage without that, and being a small town kid myself, I wouldn't want that.

I guess the thing I was trying to add was.

I believe that if you studied valedictorians, and other highly ranked students, you would find they are smarter, more disciplined, and better time managers than the rest.

Just wanting to add that we have seen first hand that there are some highly ranked kids that are so focused on only grades, that they just aren't better all around students.

Bottom line, I don't think we really have any disagreement.

If A&M assigns a freshman applicant first quarter for their rank, it is not narrowed down any further (high or low within that quarter).

If you are talking to me, we have much disagreement. First of all, if my son told me his grades were suffering because of ECs, I would have told him to cut back on the ECs, unless he is close to curing cancer, which would more likely be the kid at the top of the class. I would not have told him that he is actually a better all round student than his peers with better grades and fewer ECs, because by definition, he is not.

Second of all, I have a real problem with someone denigrating kids who get top marks on tests and homework by calling them names, such as "grade grubbers." Is Tom Brady a Super Bowl ring grubber? If your kid actually goes into engineering at TAMU, he will find his classes loaded with "grade grubbers." And those classes will be curved such that maybe 10% get As. Good luck.

Last of all, why would you send a kid to TAMU when his first choice is TU? I can't get into Michigan, so I will go to Ohio State? I can't get into Alabama, so I will go to Auburn? Seems like the second choice shouldn't be the first choice's biggest rival. To each his own.

You seem to have a bit of a combative tone. Not sure why.

The Real Dude said:

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If you are talking to me, we have much disagreement. First of all, if my son told me his grades were suffering because of ECs, I would have told him to cut back on the ECs, unless he is close to curing cancer, which would more likely be the kid at the top of the class. I would not have told him that he is actually a better all round student than his peers with better grades and fewer ECs, because by definition, he is not.

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I think there is a bit of hair splitting here. when you say grades would suffer, sure, I would not want grades to suffer either. But if we're talking about having a 104 avg and being in demanding & leadership positions of ECs or no ECs and having a 109 avg, I'll take the 104 and leadership and strong ECs.

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Second of all, I have a real problem with someone denigrating kids who get top marks on tests and homework by calling them names, such as "grade grubbers." Is Tom Brady a Super Bowl ring grubber? If your kid actually goes into engineering at TAMU, he will find his classes loaded with "grade grubbers." And those classes will be curved such that maybe 10% get As. Good luck.

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Fair enough. I think the word denigrate is a bit strong. I still stand by the point that kids that are obsessed with grades only may very well cure cancer, but they may also crash and burn due to a lack of balance in their life.

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Last of all, why would you send a kid to TAMU when his first choice is TU? I can't get into Michigan, so I will go to Ohio State? I can't get into Alabama, so I will go to Auburn? Seems like the second choice shouldn't be the first choice's biggest rival. To each his own.

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My son could care less about college football and any sort of rivalry with tu. He simply doesn't care about that. tu has a highly rated engineering program, as does A&M. Because he's outside the top 6%, it's going to be difficult for him to get into tu. That point actually frustrates him and soured him on tu some, so I don't view (and I don't think he does) A&M as some sort of fall back. He's very happy to be leaning A&M.