Research (Third Post of Many)

Chicago Schools eliminate class rank



Many top ranked high schools in the Chicagoland area have eliminated class rankings from their programs, including "Barrington High School [that] phased out the practice in 2008, [and] high schools in Deerfield, Highland Park, Glenview, Naperville and Northbrook... in 2006" while Lake Zurich will join the trend by 2013. High schools argued that the class ranking system led to severe competition between students, but some worry that opting out of class rankings will hinder students' chances of being admitted to top tier colleges. But the trend has also hit colleges, as Northwestern, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reported that they were seeing less transcripts with class rank including in them. In a time of "grade inflation and ubiquitous A's", class ranks are argued to be necessary to see how students stand relative to others. But high schools argue that the class ranks hurt students who are not top tier and force top tier students to choose schedules purely to boost their GPA. In addition, proponents of eliminating the class rank believe that wealthier, more elite schools are unfairly represented as they can only show a small percentile of their successful students.