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In the 2006 book “The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids,” author Alexandra Robbins was savage in her criticism of something that almost everyone who ever attended high school knows well — class rank by grade point average.
“Class rank encourages cutthroat competition, cheating and choosing classes based on GPA weight rather than on interests, not to mention directly pitting students against one another,” she wrote.
Robbins expressed some of the motivation behind a national push to eliminate the ranking of students by GPA.
The push is making headway. According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, more than half of all high schools no longer report students’ class rank.
As the State Journal reported June 4, more Madison area school districts are considering joining the trend.
The interest in re-evaluating class rankings deserves encouragement. The schools’ goal should be to fairly measure student achievement. Where class ranks are failing to meet that goal, they should be modified or replaced.
Some school districts report that more of their students are gaining entry into their first-choice colleges after the schools dropped class ranking. Some schools that weight GPAs to account for advanced placement courses report that dropping class ranks helped to unravel complexities and distortions of weighted and unweighted GPAs and their impact on class rank and student course choices.
Nonetheless, school districts should approach the elimination of class ranks with a healthy skepticism and pointed questions, including:
What, exactly, is the problem with class rankings in our district?Some reasons to drop class rankings make sense. Others don’t. For example, schools should beware of arguments that class rank inflicts too much competitive stress on students. While competitive stress can be harmful when it produces cheating and distorts course selections, it is beneficial when it challenges students to be the best they can be.
If not class rankings, what?If schools drop class rankings, they still have a responsibility to measure student achievement in a way that is useful to colleges, parents and the students themselves. Alternatives to class rank exist, but they have shortcomings, too.
What will our students tell college admissions offices?Colleges like to use class rank in admissions decisions because it is a good predictor of college success. Even when a school does not keep a class rank record, colleges may ask for grade point average distributions, from which admissions staff can calculate a class rank. Consequently, class ranks will exist whether a school publishes them or not.
Is this fuss much ado about not much?The controversy over class rank tends to blow the problems of high-achieving students out of proportion with the more urgent problems of low achievers. Most schools would be smart to devote more time and resources to turning low achievers into high achievers.
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