One of many goals of a high-achieving high school student is to have a high grade point average, which, in turn, results in a high class ranking. Recently, many high schools in the Chicago area, including Evanston Township High School and Oak Park & River Forest High School, have considered and even decided to eliminate class ranking from students’ transcripts. Before, one of the main aspects of a student that colleges and universities looked at was GPA and class ranking; now, colleges push to take into account additional features of an applicant, such as volunteering and involvement in school and community activities. Although Antioch Community High School has not decided to eliminate class rank, the removal of it has become more and more popular among staff and administration.

ACHS Assistant Principal for Student Services Omar Rodriguez said, “we looked into schools, definitely within our conference and then in the surrounding communities, and more and more schools are going toward eliminating class rank and not reporting it to colleges.”

ACHS Assistant Principal Aryan Haren agrees that class ranking is seen less and less.

Some high school students may have a high class ranking, but little to no extracurricular involvement; others may have an average or low class ranking with lots of school and community participation. The elimination of class rank benefits the students with extracurricular involvement, putting less emphasis on students’ grades and GPA.

ACHS junior Heather Beckman said, “I think that class rank is not very accurate because kids can take easy classes and get good grades, and improve their rank or GPA.”

Although class rank is still an important aspect, there are other characteristics that colleges consider when a student applies. In addition to academics, universities take into account the well-roundedness of an applicant.

“There are other factors that are playing into the admissions process. Counselors just earlier in the school year went to different articulations where colleges state what they like to see or what they want to see in their incoming student bodies,” said Rodriguez. “I think that there was more of a push towards volunteering and service learning and really making a difference in your community, as opposed to just focusing on the academics because, obviously, if students are doing that during their high school years and in their communities, that will spill into a college or a university, town, city, whatever. And obviously make their institution that much stronger.”

With the elimination of class rank becoming more and more popular at many schools in the area, it is even more important for students to become well-rounded.

“My personal take—and, I don’t know, everyone has a different philosophy—is class rank is something that really helps the students that are up at the top, but does not give anything to help the kids that do tend to struggle in high school and studies overall,” said Rodriguez. “[The elimination of class rank is] an effort to kind of make it an even plane altogether for everybody and not limit options or not hurt students on the lower end of the spectrum.”