better to be big fish in a little pond or vice versa

[Anonymous]

In terms of getting into college how does class rank fit in? Would it be better to be #1 in a small hs or #10 in a school 10x as large? ...assuming that everything else (SATs, AP classes) is comparable.

[Anonymous]

Class rank is pretty meaningless in a small school. I had a friend who was 8 out of 13 in her graduating class, and missed a perfect SAT score by 20 points. Everyone in her class but 4 had straight A's.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Not that small...small as in 100 students vs 1000+.

[Anonymous]

There has been academic research on this. Google "Attewell Frog Pond". IIRC, under the methodology most colleges used in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a big benefit to being in the top 1-3 students in the class, so that would tend to suggest #1 in small school would be best in your example. But also note that smaller schools will sometimes obscure class rank, since it can become arbitrary in such small groups. So colleges respond by putting more weight on other factors and/or estimating class ranks using other data. It's like an arms race.

[Anonymous]

All this assumes your school still ranks students. Fewer and fewer do.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Sorry I didn't know that schools were tending to rank students less and less...won't letters of rec at least state top of the class, top 5percent, etc?

[Anonymous]

Most of the private schools and MCPS don't do class rank and tend to have strong college placement. I think a 4.0 in challenging classes is going to be compelling whether you are in a class of 100 or 500.

[Anonymous]

Why isn't she a big fish in a big pond? The little pond often has similar, equally competitive fish. But the diversity in the big pond should make it easier for a competitive fish to be an outlier on the bell curve. I knew someone who was a big fish in a big pond with lots of different kinds of fish and she went to Princeton. If she were in a small pond, she would have wound up in a good school, but nowhere near Ivy League level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Not that small...small as in 100 students vs 1000+.

Are there really 1000+ classes in this area? My DC is in one of the larger MCPS schools and has about 500 in his class. Blair is the largest school in the county and has about 700 kids per class. Are there VA schools that are that much larger?

[Anonymous]

I think that the size of the pond matters more for extracurriculars. At a smaller school it is easier for a kid to be editor of the paper/yearbook, team captain, head of clubs. Whereas in a bigger school there is a lot more competition for these spots. I know that I switched schools for HS and wish I had stayed at my smaller school for this very reason - I got edged out of these positions whereas I would have had a better chance to "shine" at a smaller school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Not that small...small as in 100 students vs 1000+.

Are there really 1000+ classes in this area? My DC is in one of the larger MCPS schools and has about 500 in his class. Blair is the largest school in the county and has about 700 kids per class. Are there VA schools that are that much larger?

TC has 750 students per grade approximately. 750 was about the average size for an entire high school of 4 grades where I grew up in PA.

[Anonymous]

Westfield High School has an enrollment of 3200+, so that's 800 per grade. Robinson and Lake Braddock have larger enrollments, but they are secondary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Westfield High School has an enrollment of 3200+, so that's 800 per grade. Robinson and Lake Braddock have larger enrollments, but they are secondary schools.

No, that's the school's capacity, not its actual enrollment. Westfield had about 650 seniors last year. TC Williams also graduated around 650 seniors last year. None of the Arlington or Loudoun schools have graduating classes as big as Westfield or TC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield High School has an enrollment of 3200+, so that's 800 per grade. Robinson and Lake Braddock have larger enrollments, but they are secondary schools.

No, that's the school's capacity, not its actual enrollment. Westfield had about 650 seniors last year. TC Williams also graduated around 650 seniors last year. None of the Arlington or Loudoun schools have graduating classes as big as Westfield or TC.

You can't measure class size by the number who graduate. There is a significant drop out problem. In other words, there is a significant difference between how many students are enrolled in school and how many graduate. TC's and all the schools' classes are larger than the number of seniors who graduate each year. Westfield's enrollment is indeed over 3200. Capacity is not part of this.

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:141182626038579:::0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID:240

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westfield High School has an enrollment of 3200+, so that's 800 per grade. Robinson and Lake Braddock have larger enrollments, but they are secondary schools.

No, that's the school's capacity, not its actual enrollment. Westfield had about 650 seniors last year. TC Williams also graduated around 650 seniors last year. None of the Arlington or Loudoun schools have graduating classes as big as Westfield or TC.

You can't measure class size by the number who graduate. There is a significant drop out problem. In other words, there is a significant difference between how many students are enrolled in school and how many graduate. TC's and all the schools' classes are larger than the number of seniors who graduate each year. Westfield's enrollment is indeed over 3200. Capacity is not part of this.

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:141182626038579::::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID:240