(66){{U}}Application files are piled highly this month in colleges across the country.{{/U}} (67) {{U}}Admissions officers are poring essays and recommendation letters, scouring transcripts and standardized test scores.{{/U}}
(68) {{U}}But anything is missing from many applications: a class ranking, once a major component in admissions decisions.{{/U}}
In the cat-and-mouse maneuvering over admission to prestigious colleges and universities, (69) {{U}}thousands of high schools have simply stopped providing that information, concluding it could harm the chances of their very better, but not best, students.{{/U}}
(70) {{U}}Canny college officials, in turn have found a tactical way to response.{{/U}} (71) {{U}}Using broad data that high schools often provide, like a distribution of grade averages for entire senior class, they essentially recreate an applicant's class rank.{{/U}}
(72) {{U}}The process has left them exasperating.{{/U}}
(73) {{U}}"If we're looking at your son or daughter and you want us to know that they are among the best in their school with a rank we don't necessarily know{{/U}}," said Jim Buck, dean of admissions and financial aid at Swarthmore College.
(74) {{U}}Admissions directors say strategy can backfire.{{/U}} When high schools do not provide enough general information to recreate the class rank calculation, (75) {{U}}many admissions directors say they have little choice and to do something virtually no one wants them to do{{/U}}: give more weight to scores on the SAT and other standardized exams.