Real Rankings Please!
By: E
Our school should calculate the real rankings for seniors for college applications. Why? Not only is it legitimate, fair and easy, but it will also help people get into college. It's time to come to our senses. Top colleges know about the notorious ties for number one at increasingly GPA inflated schools like ours. So what you ask? Doesn't everyone then get ranked as number one on the application? No.
The colleges scale the rank to the median---meaning all of the number ones will be ranked as number twenty. The impact can be tremendous. According to statistics, the acceptance rate at top universities for students drops from an almost auto-admit 94% to a 52% coin toss when the rank drops from one to twenty.
The statistics are based on the book A is for Admission, written by Michele A. Hernandez, a former Assistant Director of Admissions of Dartmouth College. The facts written in the book on the Academic Index are further corroborated by the book What it Really takes to get into Ivy League authored by Chuck Hughes, former senior admissions director at Harvard University.
Therefore, I am asking for the support of the true calculation of the rankings at our school and then a public policy of providing this information to colleges, stating that it is a legitimate ranking. In fact, Texas is one of only two states that have been known to not calculate the real rankings before college applications.
The solution is fair because there is no undue harm done to anyone. It only calculates what the facts and numbers state. There should be some differentiation between the students. The fact that a weighted GPA of 5.33 for an A in all honors class trivializes a 4.5 GPA. One could make a 70% B average and achieve a 4.5. Are we not setting our standards a bit low? Yes. But taking aside the low standard and the clumping of all students into a 40 plus person pile, lies an inherent negative attitude towards achievement. This policy decreases the incentive to achieve because there is no obvious reward to making all A’s. Why work hard when you could make 5 B’s and 2 A’s to get a 4.5 easily? In the case that the real rankings are made, the ones who fall between 21-40 plus will make out with less. Although that is true, no one gave them unequal opportunities to achieve and the rank they earned should be just as valid as those people earned who are ranked one hundred forty. In fact, the current system is much like the tax on marriage. We are taxing those who actually deserve it rank 1-20 to give to those who in reality do not. “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
5*4.33= 21.665
2*5.33- 10.66
21.665+10.66= 32.331
32.331/7= 4.619
The solution is easy. The counselors would only need to calculate the students tied for number one. The top schools would not know or ask how many students were tied for anyone beyond number one, thus not harming or benefiting anyone. The task is quite easy since we live in the age of computers and Microsoft Excel. How hard is it to calculate the core classes (usually four per year) for forty students? Actually it would only require simple addition and division of 960 numbers. I think it could be done within an hour.
The solution is advantageous. The prestige of the school rests many times on the number of students who are accepted into top schools. Unfortunately, Clear Lake has hit a rough patch these last four years in the number of acceptances to Ivy League caliber schools. This new system boosts the statistical probablity of the acceptance of more students at these schools. A quick one-hour calculation results in a substantially increased chance of students being accepted into the top college of their dreams. The student’s path in life can be altered for the better; it truly can be a miraculous hour.
Most importantly, the results will shed light on the true achievements of students who have worked hard through their high school careers. Let’s reward those who deserve it and make the system equitable and efficient.
Quick Explanation of Academic Index:
The Academic Index, or the AI is scaled on a 240 point scale divided into three categories, each valued at 80 points: SAT I, SAT II and Class rank.
For our purposes, we will only discuss the statistics for the class rank. The scaled score is based on rank and class size.
(2 x absolute rank) –1 divided by (2 x class size)
Meaning, that a class rank of 1 in a class of roughly 850 is of course 80 points. A rank of 20 is only 70 points, a drop of ten points.
The 240 point number is then scaled from 1-9. The ten point drop can mean dropping from a 9 to a 6. A 229 can drop to a 219. Of course this is severe, but it can mean an even bigger difference if you are borderline 8 (225) and drop to a 5 (215). In fact, your application just went from 92% acceptance to 25% acceptance--- at least at Dartmouth, an Ivy League school. It is important to note that all Ivy League schools and most top schools use this formula (all schools probably use comparable formulas).
9=229-above
8=225-228
7=221-224
6=216-220
5=210-215
4=200-209
3=189-199
2=180-188
1=179 and below
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