【M1】______Application files are piled highly this month in colleges across the country. 【M2】______Admissions officers are poring essays and recommendation letters, 【M3】______scouring transcripts and standardized test score. 【M4】______But anything is missing from many applications: a class ranking, once a major component in admissions decisions. In the cat and mouse maneuvering over admission to prestigious colleges and universities, 【M5】______thousands of high schools have simple stopped providing that information, 【M6】______concluding it could harm the chances of their very better, but not best, students. 【M7】______Canny college officials, in turn have found a tactical way to response. 【M8】______Using broad data that high schools often provide, like a distribution of grade averages for entire senior class, 【M9】______they essential recreate an applicants class rank. 【M10】______The process has left them exasperating. 【M11】______"If were 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 dont necessarily know that," said Jim Buck, 【M12】______dean of admissions and financial aid Swarthmore College. 【M13】______Admissions directors say strategy can backfire. When high schools do not provide enough general information to recreate the class rank calculation, 【M14】______many admissions directors say they have little choice and to do something virtually no one wants them to do: 【M15】______giving more weight to scores on the SAT and other standardized exams.
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