FCPS HS Class Rank policy

[Anonymous]

First, I apologize in advance for so many questions. If anyone has a point of contact they can direct me to, I would be grateful. Not sure if it would be my school board member of a staff member...

This is from the School Board Regulations:

Each high school will be provided with a percentile rating of GPA’s for estimating
class rank for individual scholarships or military applications that require this
information. High schools will not calculate a numerical class rank other than this
percentile ranking.

IV. COMMUNICATION WITH COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
The principal and director of student services shall provide colleges and universities
with an explanation of the class rank policy through the Fairfax County Public Schools
profile.

Am I understanding correctly that class ranks are not provided to students nor colleges (except in the case of scholarship or military applications)?
Has anyone seen the letter that goes out to colleges explaining the class rank policy?
Does it, or other source, mention why class rank is not used routinely?

I'm not upset about the policy, more curious than anything else, and wonder if/how it can affect admissions. I figure (hope) there is a reasonable explanation, but I'm not understanding why we don't use it since I understand many (most?) colleges use class rank as part of their calculations for admission. What do colleges, that routinely use class rank info, do when it is not available?

[Anonymous]

I don't know the answer, but plenty of Fairfax high school grads get into the Ivies somehow, and MIT in the case of TJ grads, so the colleges must have a way to evaluate
Fairfax high school grads.
What interests me is if you wanted to game the system would it be better to move to, say Rappahanock County where your kid would probably have a much higher class rank than he/she would have at the FCPS high schools?