weighted GPA & class ranking

Well-informed parents/kids game the system early on by selecting the high school courses not by interest but by maximizing the benefit of weighted GPA & class ranking. There are kids taking 12+ AP courses after junior year - bringing unhealthy competition/stress/unfairness to the student body.

Our school district is hence removing the class ranking in their counselor's report to colleges.This practice is objected by familes with kids at the top tier,but welcomed by families with kids at the middle tier.

Without class ranking, can the admission officiers rely on GPAs to figure out where the students stand in class? How accurate or reliable are GPAs in differentiating the kids? The current grading system uses a combination of metrics (class presence, homework completeness, project, test score, etc.).The grading is not curved or linear. It's not uncommon to see a mediocre student getting an A but he is obviously not an apple in the eyes of the peers or the teachers. If the teacher can rate students in a linear way (tie break the kids to a linear ranking like in tournaments judging), these ratings would be much more revealing than GPAs. The student's stand in class, strength, and interest can clearly show thru. However,it's not practical to change the current grading system to linear ranking.

Without class ranking, students used to be in middle tier taking less-challenging courses will now appear at the top, making the top a even more crowded space. The number metrics such as GPAs are all looking perfect and hence useless. Admission officers will have to rely more heavily on other subjective metrics, on which those students taking less-challenging courses might have had more energy or resouces to tackle on.

What's the practice of your school on reporting class ranking? Does your school offer challenging courses and hence weighted GPAs? Are GPAs in your school curved enough to differentiate the kids apart? Do you think ranking has played very important part in your kid's college application? If your kid had a chance to redo high school, do you wish the class ranking stay or go away?