Down With The Count

When East students received their report cards in January, they noticed that something was missing — their class rank. This wasn’t a mistake by Skyward or a typo by the district. It was part of a decision affecting all Shawnee Mission schools that aims to reduce competitiveness and provide more scholarship opportunities to students.

From now on, SMSD will not rank students.

The decision was a long time coming, according to SMSD Associate Superintendent Dr. Gillian Chapman. District officials began discussing the effectiveness of class rank last year. This fall, the district realized that class rank could easily be removed from transcripts in the new Skyward program. Although there was never a board vote or district hearing over the decision, class rank did not appear on first semester transcripts.

The district found that class rank was not preferred by colleges, and often caused students to receive smaller scholarships than their Grade Point Average would have earned them. On top of these problems, the district feared that class rank caused bitter competitiveness between students.

“It’s something that we know will benefit our students, so once we had the opportunity to do it, we did,” Chapman said. “There was never any real disagreement over the fact that class rank had to go.”

Previously, class rank at SMSD high schools was based on the GPA of each student in each grade. Students’ ranks were based on who had the highest GPA on a 5.0 scale. Regular classes earned four points per A, while honors, AP and IB classes earned five points per A. This forced students to take high-level classes in order to boost their GPA and earn a higher class rank, which meant that class rank was relative based on how other students performed.

At East, the average weighted GPA is a 3.5 according to registrar Stephanie Blackmer. This means that a student needs a 4.0 to break into the top 100 in the class. In the eyes of many East students, this makes class rank an unfair measure of a student’s abilities.

“I worked as hard as I could during high school, and I ended up with over a 4.0, and that still wasn’t good enough,” senior Darby Fugitt said. “I never thought it was fair that I couldn’t qualify for scholarships simply based on how other students did, not based on how I personally did.”

By not reporting class rank, the students will be able to use only their grades when applying for colleges and scholarships. At most state universities, class rank is a major factor in scholarship applications. However, when students do not report class rank, these universities use a specialized formula to calculate core GPA, which is based on core classes such as English, math and science. This core GPA typically reflects more positively than class rank for students from competitive districts such as SMSD.

This core GPA calculation could qualify students for higher scholarships. At the University of Missouri, admissions representative Michael Banks says that students who previously received a $5,000 yearly scholarship based on class rank would earn a $7,500 based on their core GPA. This difference comes from the fact that most East students ranked in the top 10 percent of their class are separated from each other by only a fraction of a point.

“This can only help you as a student,” Banks said. “Using [core] GPA will only allow more students at a competitive and successful school such as [Shawnee Mission] East to receive scholarships and other opportunities. It’s a win-win.”

The decision by the district to cut class rank follows a national trend that began in colleges across the country. A survey by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling shows that only 18.8 percent of American colleges consider class rank to be of “considerable importance” in an admissions decision.

The same percent of schools considered class rank to be of “no importance” at all. This trend is reflected in East students, as only eight percent of 50 surveyed AP and IB students considered class rank to be “very important.”

“I wasn’t even phased when I saw that it was gone,” senior Shrusti Mehta said. Mehta is ranked first in the senior class. “I feel like class rank isn’t something that matters to colleges anymore, so I didn’t really care.”

After the district learned about the lack of admissions emphasis on class rank, Chapman said that the decision was simple for the district. However, the district wants to ensure that top students are rewarded for their high class rank. Therefore, principals and counselors will have the ability to release class rank to select students who request it.

This option is available for all students, but it is aimed at valedictorians and other high-ranking students who feel that their class rank will benefit their admissions odds. For East principal John McKinney, this new flexibility is focused on creating transcripts that are beneficial for students.

“There is no way that class rank can help most East students, because East students go above and beyond,” McKinney said. “Our top 10 kids are amazing students. But so is our entire top 10 percent, and I would even say our top 50 percent. This is a special school, and class rank can’t accurately reflect that.”

While this decision will expand opportunities for East students, both Chapman and McKinney believe that it will also reduce competitiveness in each class. Chapman believes that the competition to reach the top rank in the class caused animosity between students.

However, East students at the top don’t agree that competitiveness existed in the first place. In a poll of 50 AP and IB students, only one third felt that class rank made students competitive with one another. Students such as Mehta and junior IB student Natalie Kaufman feel that the “cutthroat” stereotype of high-level students is a myth.

“For the people at the top, we kind of get into our spots early in high school and stay in that spot,” Kaufman said. “I started out at third and just stayed that way, and there was never any jockeying or competition to try to get higher. That just doesn’t happen.”

However, McKinney believes that the decision will still provide a more positive learning environment for East students. By not judging themselves off of the performance of others, he believes that students will feel that they are in a safer learning atmosphere — one that will encourage the success of individual students.

“I think this shows what we care about as a district,” McKinney said. “I don’t need to judge how good of a student someone is by how well someone else does on a test. I just worry about how they do on a test. Our focus is always on our students as individual people, and I think this is just one more example of that.”