With the 2021-22 school year adjustment to an unweighted, numerical class ranking system, CHS students find themselves pondering the worth of AP and honors classes while questioning the academic decisions of their administration. Class ranking is a component of college applications that is based on grade point average alone and can be a factor in college admissions offices around the United States.

An unweighted class ranking means that AP classes no longer affect a student’s standing within the rank. However, a weighted class rank allots extra credit for taking Advanced Placement classes, regardless of whether a student participated in the AP exam. Students raised many questions concerning the adjustment to an unweighted class rank, and the administrators answered these inquiries.

In the past, CHS has included students’ weighted GPA in the process of determining class rank. For the senior class, administrators held the responsibility of calculating each student’s GPA.

This process involved going back through and adding a GPA point for each AP class, then recalculating the rank. This was a tedious process and not always an accurate one, as the imbalance in the number of credits led to rank being based partially on admin discretion. Over the years, the discussion of changing this process was brought to light, and in 2019 the school board approved Policy 2410, scheduling an unweighted rank to go into effect for the class of 2022. 

Some students indicated that they felt as if they were left in the dust by this change in policy, indicating it should have been explained to the senior class in a more explicit manner. Rose Kuhle, a senior, said “If they were planning on doing it, why didn’t they tell us freshman year, because I feel like it’s unfair to spring it on us as a senior saying, “Oh, by the way, your unweighted GPA doesn’t matter.”

Some students felt as if they understood the change because they reviewed the 2020-21 CHS Forecasting guide, but others were more aligned with Kuhle’s point of view. Brian Wilde, an Associate Principal at CHS, said “I would say I’ve heard enough feedback from seniors that causes me to say ‘You know what, no matter how hard we tried to communicate it as a school and as a district, the message didn’t get received.’”

It is important to note that the school board Policy 2410 referred more to recognition at graduation rather than reported class rank itself. The adjustment in class rank is a side effect of recognition for seniors who take any form of college courses, since classes such as college-level math, College in the High School, Running Start, and any class that isn’t marked “AP” is not accredited an extra GPA point.

When quoting Thomas Guskey, Wilde said, “Class rank is really designed to select talent, rather than to develop talent.”

Policy 2410 affected valedictorian and salutatorian to the greatest extent. Valedictorian and salutatorian are eliminated, and the Latin model is now the main ranking system. Everyone from 3.9-4.0 is designated as summa cum laude, 3.75-3.9 is magna cum laude, and everyone 3.5 and above is cum laude. The senior class votes to elect a commencement speaker from the pool of recognized individuals and another speaker is appointed. 

Students’ concern with unweighted class rank as a whole is accompanied by their stress surrounding college applications. Despite the many ways that colleges receive class rank, such as quartiles, percentiles, weighted or unweighted, some students rely on their class rank as a vital admissions factor. As a result, many students questioned the benefit of Policy 2410. The administrator’s response highlights that class rank is one small factor in the whole of an applicant’s portfolio. According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, in the fall of 2016, only 9.2 percent of college admissions weighted first-time freshman’s class rank as “considerably important.”

There are also many varying methods in which class rank may be reported by high schools: percentiles, quartiles, unweighted, weighted, etc. Tom Morris, the Principal at CHS, said, “And they [college admissions officers] are understanding where yours is at, and if they want your class rank to be weighted, or your gpa to be weighted, they’re gonna pull your transcript and weight it.”

Going forward, the administration and the students found they do agree on some aspects of class rank. Both believe that at some point, it may be best to get rid of class rank as a whole.

Kaili Zeigler, a senior, said, “I know that they’re trying to do an equity thing for everyone, so if they’re trying to change it so it’s more equal for everyone, then get rid of it, because it’s not fair to the AP honor students since we’ve been doing college classes since we were freshmen.” 

Wilde said, “I think there’s a potentially important conversation for our stakeholders (our kids, our families, our schools) to talk about whether or not we want to rank our students at all.”

Regardless of the many perspectives concerning class rank, Policy 2410 will be staying intact over the next few years at the very least. Whether students agree or disagree with the policy, all will have to adjust and adapt to another one of the many changes from the past year and a half. 

As Wilde said, “I’m not saying I’m for or against class rank, but I am saying it’ll make for an interesting conversation in the next few years.”