{{Short description|Comparative measure of students' performance}} {{Globalize|article|US|Canada|date=August 2022}} {{About||the film|Class Rank (film)}} {{Redirect|Percent plan|Abraham Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction after the American Civil War|Ten percent plan}} '''Class rank''' is a measure of how a student's performance compares to other students in their class. It is commonly also expressed as a percentile. For instance, a student may have a GPA better than 750 of their classmates in a graduating class of 800, which would make their class rank approximately 50 out of 800.

In practical terms, class rank provides a relative performance benchmark rather than an absolute assessment of academic ability. It enables institutions, scholarship committees, and employers to quickly evaluate where a student stands within a defined peer group, especially when grading standards or curricula vary across schools. When expressed as a percentile, class rank further simplifies comparison by indicating the proportion of students a candidate has outperformed. As a result, class rank is often used as a strategic screening and differentiation tool in competitive academic and professional selection processes.

== Use in high schools == {{expand section|date=August 2022}} The use of class rank is currently in practice at about less than half of American high schools.<ref name=CollegeBoard/> Large public schools are more likely to rank their students than small private schools.<ref name=CollegeBoard>{{cite web |url=http://www.collegeboard.com/prof/counselors/apply/14.html |title=Counselor's Connection - Apply to College: Class Rank and College Admissions |accessdate=July 5, 2007 |publisher=The College Board |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070710223029/http://www.collegeboard.com/prof/counselors/apply/14.html |archive-date=July 10, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Because many admissions officers were frustrated that many applications did not contain a rank, some colleges are using other information provided by high schools, in combination with a student's GPA to estimate a student's class rank. Many colleges{{weasel-inline|date=May 2015}} say that the absence of a class rank forces them to put more weight on standardized test scores.<ref name=NYT>{{Cite news | last=Finder | first=Alex | date=March 5, 2003 | title=Schools Avoid Class Ranking, Vexing Colleges | periodical=The New York Times | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/education/05rank.html |accessdate=July 5, 2007}}</ref>

== Use in college admissions == Colleges often use class rank as a factor in college admissions, although because of differences in grading standards between schools, admissions officers have begun to attach less weight to this factor, both for granting admission, and for awarding scholarships. Class rank is more likely to be used at large schools that are more formulaic in their admissions programs.<ref name=CollegeBoard />

=== Percent plans === Some U.S. states guarantee that students who achieve a high enough class rank at their high school will be admitted into a state university, in a practice known as ''percent plans''. Students in California who are in the top nine percent of their graduating class,<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/index.html | title=California residents &#124; UC Admissions}}</ref> and students in Florida who are in the top twenty percent of their graduating class are guaranteed admission to some state school, but not necessarily any particular institution. The University of Alaska system awards an $11,000 scholarship for four years to students in the top 10% of their graduating class at Alaskan high schools. The top ten percent of students in Texas high schools are guaranteed admission to the state school{{Broken anchor|date=2024-08-03|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=List of colleges and universities in Texas#State universities|reason= The anchor (State universities) has been deleted.}} of their choice,<ref>{{cite journal | last = Lang | first = David M. | date = April 1, 2007 | title = Class Rank, GPA, and Valedictorians: How High Schools Rank Students | journal = American Secondary Education <!-- note that this is not actually a journal. But this citation template provides more parameters that are useful than {{citation}} does. --> | volume = 35 | issue = 2 | pages = 36–48 | issn = 0003-1003 <!-- Note: This is what Ebsco Host defines as the ISSN, but the link goes to a slightly different article --> }}</ref> excluding the University of Texas, which only allocates 75% of its incoming freshman class seats to top 6% members.<ref>{{cite web | title=The University of Texas at Austin to Automatically Admit Top 10 Percent of High School Graduates for 2011 | url=http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/09/16/top7_percent/ | accessdate=2010-04-05 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

== See also == * Rank-based grading in the United States * Latin honors * Salutatorian * Valedictorian

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links == * [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/education/desperately-seeking-diversity-the-10-percent-solution.html?emc=rss&partner=rssnyt DESPERATELY SEEKING DIVERSITY; The 10 Percent Solution] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20130408094432/http://www.thestudentranking.com/ A global student and university ranking system (www.thestudentranking.com]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Class Rank}} Category:Student assessment and evaluation Category:Educational evaluation methods