On October 27, 2020, the Loudoun County public school board came to the near-unanimous decision to remove the class ranking system. Starting with the graduating class of 2025, high schools will follow the Latin Honor System, which places students in a percentile instead of assigning them a number. In other words, instead of having a valedictorian, the top performing student will be placed along with others in one of three groups based on their GPA: summa cum laude (top five percent), magna cum laude (top ten percent), and cum laude (top twenty percent).
The school board’s decision was made with the best of intentions: to make college admissions more fair and relieve the pressure students may feel about earning a specific rank. However, the verdict is not without criticism. Former school board member Jeff Morse stated, “You may be relieving the pressure at the very top because they don’t have to be the No. 1; they’ll be in the top 5 [percent], but I assure you our students are still pressured” (wtopnews).
Jenna Gould, a senior at Tuscarora, would have been the class of 2025’s salutatorian if the numerical class ranking system still existed. She concurs with Morse’s statement, stating that, “[while] the school board wanted to put less stress on students to reach a high spot when it comes to college applications, the removal of it is just placing more pressure on GPA.”
Regardless of the school board’s good intentions, the unintended consequence of the switch is the increased pressure it puts on getting a better GPA. Gould states, “Class rank is a metric of merit,” and removing the numerical system takes away a student’s ability to use their class rank as a reflection of said merit. Now, their GPA alone will be used as a reflection of their academic prowess.
Additionally, the difficulty of obtaining a good GPA varies at different schools. “Different high schools have different grade inflations … [a] GPA of a 4.3 may be significantly harder to attain at one school compared to another in LCPS. This makes it unfair to people who attend a more difficult school to raise their GPA,” Gould explains. In essence, while the class ranking system was switched to make the college admissions process more equitable for students, it only puts more pressure on GPA instead of getting a class rank. In an attempt to solve one issue, it opens the door for another.
The change in the class ranking system affects not only college admissions but also scholarship applications. There are numerous merit-based scholarships that require an applicant to have a particular numerical rank. These are “typically awarded by the admissions office based on high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores [and] are given to a small percentage of prospective students, sometimes limited to valedictorians, salutatorians, or high-ranking students” (Edvisors).
The new Latin Honors system is not without its benefits, however. It may prove advantageous to those who are not top-performers like the valedictorian or other previously high-ranking individuals. In this sense, the new system can provide opportunities to students who might not have had them if their transcripts reflected a low rank. After all, while GPA is a crucial part of a student’s high school career, it only plays a trifle role during the application process for colleges and scholarships and does not reflect the entirety of a student’s merit.
All in all, the Latin Honors system gives all students within their respective categories a more level playing field. However, in doing so, it may take opportunities away from top-performing students who would have had more of an edge while applying to scholarships and colleges. Gould says, “I have no idea if class ranks will return, but I hope they do. Without it, there will always exist some unfairness unless colleges and scholarships get rid of any consideration over class rank.”
