The School does not have a class rank because, as Nora Main, the Associate Director of College Counseling, said, “as a small school, and as an independent school, a class rank isn’t a meaningful measurement… In a class of 135 to 145 students… the establishment of class rank wouldn’t add any value, either to the students here or from a college perspective.”

Main explained, “As colleges have come to understand that a holistic and contextual understanding of the students in their applicant pool matters more in terms, a class rank has no meaning.” She added, “Fewer and fewer schools [use a class rank].” 

In the past, a college rank was sometimes useful: it was, as Main referenced, “a mathematically accurate way to differentiate students in a class… [but] not a good predictor of what a student is or will be capable of at school.” Main said that “[t]he transcript as a whole is the best measurement…the story that the transcript tells… is the best measurement of success, not how that is then distilled into a fraction.” 

Main added that “a class rank could place upon a student an undue burden around how they think about themselves as a person and as a student,” giving another reason for removing it. 

In the past, the school had a class rank. David Zalk ‘66 remembered“[they] would have seven marking periods a year,” and that “at the end of each marking period, there was an announcement in Chapel [about] which students had the best grades for that marking period.” Visual arts teacher Bill Colburn ‘88 stated that while he remembered having a class rank, he “didn’t spend [his] time thinking about it.” 

Over time, responding to changes in academics and the college process, the school phased out a class rank, cutting it at the end of [year]. 

Zalk asserted “the idea [of removing a class rank is] to deemphasize comparative standing.” He noted, “Some people… have the idea that constant comparison is not conducive to a healthy learning environment.” Colburn added, “It’s no good to find out you’re at the bottom, and it could be obsessive if you were at the top, so I think it’s highly problematic and I’m glad they got rid of it.”

“I think the benefit would be incentive… a statement that we value academic excellence,” Zalk said, “And a way of valuing academic excellence is to recognize that people have achieved some level of distinction in their academics.” Yet, Zalk acknowledged that “[w]e’re probably better off doing it the way we do now.”