By Staff Writer, Aida B.

            Imagine having no identity; no personality or character. Imagine being only defined as a number and nothing more. The Glendale Unified School District’s (GUSD) class rank system has been doing just this to each of its students with class ranking. Assigning numbers to students makes the statement very clear schools do not care about the pupil as an individual, but only as a number, hence limiting all their efforts, talents, hopes and dreams.

            The arrangement of class ranking is not only an unjust way of classifying a student, but it also creates tension and extreme competition amongst peer groups, thus harming the pupil’s ability to truly learn . It will serve the students best when this system is eliminated.

            In 2007, GUSD eliminated the class ranking system starting with the class of 2010. According to the article “Indicators of Excellence” published by GUSD, director of instructional support at GUSD Michael Seaton considered the deletion of this system beneficial, considering that if a school had a large number of pupils with a high Grade Point Average (GPA), then those ranked in the lower 30th or 40th percentile “will not look so great, even though they have work just as hard for a high GPA.”
            It is not fair that students who are ranked in the higher numbers, receive the most credit, while those who have given their best effort to achieve a relatively high GPA are failed to be acknowledged.
“I feel like all that I’ve done in my high school career goes to waste, because my achievements are not expressed in my number. When compared to my classmates’ ranks, my rank seems ordinary or inefficient, even though I have worked really hard to get to where I am,” Ani Darbinyan (’08) said.
It creates an imbalanced playing field, and makes it impossible to stand side by side with one’s peer.
            Those who are valedictorians, salutatorians, and those who are considered the “elite” also sense the harms of the ranking system. Adolescents usually do not perform well under pressure, and constant stress leads to damaging results. When a student is ranked as number one, or two or three, they are stereotyped.
            They are viewed as the “smart kids” who are bound to always be straight A students who are unable to comprehend any reasoning behind getting a grade of a B. This incessant obsession of GPAs and of putting pressure on these students can cause them great grief.
Hayk Muradyan (’09), ranked number one in his class, believes that competition is a common part of life and that class rank is necessary to “differentiate among those who work and those who don’t.”
However, even though he considers competition an element of human nature, he also states that “it does not define intelligence” and would feel more “relieved” if the system were eradicated.
Since colleges, especially private universities, pay close attention to the students who are in the top 20th percentile of their schools, the competition for such an honorary title is constantly growing. Intense competition does not mean quality learning or education. By creating this tension, colleges and schools are robbing the students of the true joys of learning for the sake of acquiring knowledge and they are pressuring students to “beat” someone else’s GPA.
            With the eradication of the ranking system, competition, prejudice, and tension will be removed, granting students an opportunity to achieve their academic best without academic pressure.