When in high school, you are likely to have a lot of things on your plate. From after-school activities to sports to homework. Oh yeah, you have a family too. Meanwhile, all your friends at school are studying extremely hard to get into Med school where you have A/B average and are doing just fine. With the competitive nature that high school already has to offer, many students ask one question: “Does your class rank matter?”

When asking yourself if your rank matters, the immediate thought of “I have to get into college. Yes it matters.” pops into your mind. Whether it’s Harvard Law or a local community college, a majority of colleges will, of course, look at your rank. Will they judge your whole life and make a decision on whether you’re worthy solely on your rank? Probably not. Can you change the way the kids around you study? Definitely not. These are both out of your control.

In high school, everyone is divided up amongst their grade and put into a giant system where you are compared against your peers to how well you are doing. Colleges want to know where you are in relation to the majority of the school. They want to see that if you have a 3.99 GPA and are ranked 170 out of 180, then maybe you’re not as good they thought you were. Although you think this sounds nice and fair, I believe it is the farthest thing from it.

School is different for everyone. Whether you live in a private school with 23 people in your class or a public school with 2,000 people in your class, I think that ranking individuals amongst each other is not a fair representation of one’s self worth. Although it would be easy to say a student isn’t learning as quick because he’s in the bottom half, that is as far from right as one can swing.

Ranks across the nation vary depending on where you are and how “smart” the kids are in that area. In more prosperous parts of the country, kids have more resources to do well and will generally test higher on exams than one who does not. Now if you take an average kid in a prosperous part and put him into a less flourishing society, he is all the sudden one of the best. If you do the opposite and take a normal kid from lower school and put him in a more financially dependent district, he is labeled as one of the stupidest kids in the class.

As elementary as that sounds, if nothing has changed except his location, why should that affect anything. Now is the time to ask, how can a college make an accurate prediction on whether he or she is most fit for their school based on the atmosphere they live in and how well their buddy next door is doing. It is not. For as much as one could argue, unless your last name is Einstein or your school transfer worked for the better, it is not fair for what it is.

Classes will vary. Tests will vary. Teachers will vary. Even the desks you write on will vary. Why not take into account that tests scores will vary as well