As application deadlines loom formidably close and seniors feverishly work on assembling and polishing their college applications, there is one less thing that they have to stress out about: class rankings. As with the majority of high schools in the United States, Ridge does not have class rankings, meaning that it does not order its graduating class based on grade point average. And it should stay that way.

Class rankings were initially used by high schools throughout the country in order to help admissions officers sort through volumes of applications by directly comparing a student’s grades to those of his or her peers. However, according to CollegeBoard, today, more than half of American high schools no longer publish class rankings—a practice particularly prevalent amongst more elite and competitive high schools, which believe that percentile cut-offs such as the top 5% or 10% end up squeezing out students who are by no means underachieving.

An environment in which students are extraordinarily preoccupied with the difference between an 89.4% and an 89.5%, or a 92% versus a 93%, Ridge is certainly already rigorous and competitive enough. There is no need for another number, ranking, or percentile for students to worry about.

Already, the majority of the high school experience is governed by numbers, whether they are standardized test scores, AP scores, or grade point averages. As Ashley Yang ’17 adamantly states, “I do not believe that there should be a ranking system [in Ridge] because that would be another distraction from the real purpose of education—learning. We already focus on things such as GPAs and colleges which detract from the experience of learning.” The use of class rankings at Ridge would perpetuate the idea that success is determined by such numbers and thatstudents should focus on them for that reason.

Ultimately, class rankings reduce students to one number that inadequately serves to represent four years of hard work on a common scale. Not only that, but there are also certainly more factors to a student’s value than his or her grade point average, whether it is sports, interests, extracurricular achievements, or even personality.

Principal Howlett, speaking on why Ridge does not publish class rankings, explains, “Schools of our academic standing have eliminated ranking as it hurts our students. The absence of a rank focuses colleges on stronger measures of our student’s abilities.”

Instead of seeing high school as an educational experience, the existence of class rankings would spur students with a competitive streak (and there are quite a few of those at Ridge) to fixate on how their achievements look on paper. Students would be more motivated by their final grade point average than by the idea of accumulating knowledge. Sowmya Mannimala ’17 aptly summarizes, “We shouldn’t have rankings because they make students stress out too much—students lose sleep just to achieve a ranking. In the end, everyone can go to college even if they don’t have a certain ranking.”

Instating class rankings at Ridge would pit students against each other; news of another student’s A on a test wouldn’t be perceived as an invitation for congratulations, but rather as a threat to one’s standing. Unfortunately, some of this mentality already manifests itself at Ridge without the existence of class rankings.

Michael Hackett ’17 agrees that class rankings would be detrimental, asserting, “Competition at Ridge already leads to highly stressed students—reinforcing competition with rankings at Ridge would ultimately elevate this problem and prove harmful to the mental health of our students.”

After all, high school should be a collaborative experience in which students see their peers as people to learn from rather than competitors. The opposite would be achieved by class rankings.