D-211 Votes to Eliminate Class Rank

Students at Township High School District 211’s five high schools will no longer be ranked based upon their grade point average (GPA).

Board members unanimously approved the recommendation of a district committee comprised of administrators and counselors to discontinue the practice at the Dec. 8 board meeting.

D-211 Superintendent Nancy Robb said only 20 percent of colleges are using class rank as part of their admission process. “What we have discovered is that it actually could be more of a negative influence than a positive influence,” Robb said.

The implementation will take place in two phases. Class rank will be removed from report cards and transcripts beginning next year. However students from the Class of 2013 – next year’s seniors – will have the option of voluntarily reporting class rank within college or scholarship applications.

Ranking students by GPA will be fully eliminated beginning with the Class of 2014.

By discontinuing the practice of ranking students, the district must change its formula for selecting academic scholars. Instead of the top 25 students based on class rank, the district is recommending that both a non-weighted and weighted GPA be used to identify students.

All students meeting or exceeding those GPAs would be named academic scholars.

The committee is expected to determine an appropriate GPA for this process and bring a recommendation to the Board of Education at a future meeting.

Video of the vote and discussion is attached to this story.