It's been this way since I was in school in MCPS (graduated 15 years ago), and I liked it then, and still do. It doesn't matter where you rank in terms of the other students--your job is to push yourself and do YOUR best. That's the message we always received, and I think it was beneficial.

Yes, it's a good thing, but keep in mind that the colleges have a pretty good idea of how a 3.3 stacks up vs. a 3.9 in the competitive MD high schools.

DC goes to a high school where 60% of the graduating class of 2011 had a GPA of higher than 3.5 (I think that was unweighted GPA). That means if DC has GPA of 3.3 he could be in the bottom 25% of his class. This makes him look like a hillbilly yet he takes very hard classes and gets B's in some of them. Damn