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The Daily Tar Heel

Chapel Hill, Thank Your Lucky Stars

At least, that's the conclusion of a recent academic study that is drawing a lot of attention in the media and among educators and college admissions officers. Written by Paul Attewell, a sociology professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, "The Winner-Take-All High School: Organizational Adaptations to Educational Stratification" appeared last month in the journal Sociology of Education.

Attewell contends that students at "star" public high schools had lower grades and lower class rank than if they attended a "regular" school thanks to increased competition and stricter grading standards.

Lower class rank, in turn, prevents some students who would be valedictorian at one school -- but rank 25th at a star school -- from gaining admission to a school such as Yale or Harvard.

The study's findings have been reported in The Washington Post, Education Week and The (Raleigh) News & Observer.

It has fueled fears among parents and students at these "star" high schools that their child might get the short end of the stick when college acceptance letters begin getting mailed out -- and raised some concerns in our area.

Those fears are unfounded. Attewell's study -- though not a cursory examination -- overstates the importance of class rank.

Going to a star high school, such as Chapel Hill High School or East Chapel Hill High School, does not hurt your chances of getting into a good college. It greatly increases those odds.

Class rank is an issue that has sweated students at ECHHS before. Earlier this year, the school asked the state for permission to drop class rank from students' transcripts. All public schools in the state are required to use the Student Information Management System, which reports class rank. The state subsequently denied that request -- and rightfully so.

It would be grossly unfair for one school in the state to be able to abolish class rank because of increased student competition. It's a matter of the privileged whining.

The argument of administrators, parents and students: Class rank hurts their chances of getting into an elite university.

After all, at ECHHS 30 percent of students have at least a 4.0 grade point average, and 60 percent have at least a 3.8 GPA.

But to think that an admissions officer at any college would throw away a student's application after glancing at class rank is absurd. If a student has a 4.1 GPA and is ranked 23rd in his class, any admissions officer would recognize that the high school must be ultra-competitive.

High-performing schools such as those in Chapel Hill are nationally recognized. After all, our students, faculty, administrators -- even superintendent -- have won national honors. Admissions officers know this and are much more likely to take students who land lower in the class rank hierarchy.

The most important thing to remember is that schools around here present opportunities to the students that most schools would die for.

How many clubs, computers, state-of-the-art teaching tools and advanced classes do these high schools offer? Certainly many more than mine did. These are opportunities for students to grow as individuals and set themselves apart.

A number on a piece of paper will not get your foot into the door at an elite university.

Taking advantage of the perks Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools offers will.

The bottom line is that going to a school in this system is a blessing, not a hindrance. If your child is enrolled in ECHHS or CHHS, consider yourself lucky.

I'm sure there are many more parents in the state who would gladly swallow a single number to be able to give their kids the education ours receive.

Columnist Jonathan Chaney can be reached at jhchaney@email.unc.edu.

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