how does class rank work?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

unsung

Full Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Messages
1,356
Reaction score
16
Let's say the top 10% of the class gets honors. Pretend the class has 250 students. What if there's a 50-person tie for the top cumulative score? Then 20% of the class would get honors, right?

I realize this is a stupid example and also a stupid Q.

But what I don't get is... how does class ranking work if there are massive ties?

I guess the answer to my own Q is everyone tied would get honors. But that seems screwy to me for some reason.
 
Let's say the top 10% of the class gets honors. Pretend the class has 250 students. What if there's a 50-person tie for the top cumulative score? Then 20% of the class would get honors, right?

I realize this is a stupid example and also a stupid Q.

But what I don't get is... how does class ranking work if there are massive ties?

I guess the answer to my own Q is everyone tied would get honors. But that seems screwy to me for some reason.

They can use your percent score.
 
The admissions office multiply your overall percentage grade to how much they think it should worth. For example, lets say you got a 78% overall in gross anatomy, 95% in behavioral, 85% in internal medicine and 76% in surgery. Now, lets just say that they weight anatomy much more than behavioral: anatomy is worth 15% of your overall preclinical while behavioral is 7% overall. Also, lets say clerkship grades are worth much more than the first two years; 75% former to 25% latter... A sample calculation would come out like this:

.25[ (78*.15) +(95 *.07)+ other preclinicals ] + .75 [ (85*.25) + (76*.25) + other rotations]

In short, pre-clinicals weight so much less compare to the clinical ones, but they do count for something. I mean you don't want to get like 10% out of 25%, lol. From what I got, I think our school does something like this to come up with their overall ranking.
In some schools where my friends go, they don't even factor in pre-clinicals.
 
At our school, if there is a tie, then they use grade percentiles. So a 90 and a 91 might both make As, but IF there was a tie, then the 91 would rank higher.

I doubt it ever happens. Only 100 kids at my school, and they only rank in quartiles. Not a lot of competetion here, except for about 10 students anyway... and the rest of us hate them!

BTW, preclinical grades mean nothing. NOTHING. See attachment. 👍
 

Attachments

On the interview trail right now, and class rank seems to matter very little if at all.

What about for AOA selection? I know it's probably been discussed ad nauseum around here somewhere, and I also know it varies from school to school, but what top % are usually invited to join?
 
What about for AOA selection? I know it's probably been discussed ad nauseum around here somewhere, and I also know it varies from school to school, but what top % are usually invited to join?

http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/how.html

1/6th of the top 25% of the class can be selected for AOA.

Thus, if your class has 100 students, the top 25 are eligible, but only 4 students are chosen.
 
http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/how.html

1/6th of the top 25% of the class can be selected for AOA.

Thus, if your class has 100 students, the top 25 are eligible, but only 4 students are chosen.

Wrong...

"From this top quartile of students, each chapter may elect to AΩA membership up to one-sixth of the projected number of students that will graduate."

100 person class => top 25 eligible => pick (1/6)*100 = ~16 people.
 
Top