What percentile am I in with my class rank and is it a good percentile?

23rd percentile.

I don’t think so, @King_Pariah. I’m no mathematician, but I do know that “98th percentile” means “you did better than 98% of the people taking the test.” If the OP did better than only 23% of the people in the class, he would be down somewhere around number 294 of 381, don’t you think?

77th Percentile.

You are above 76.4 percent of your class, so 77th percentile (as @SpatzieLover said).

facepalm

I was thinking in reverse, I’m an idiot

The 77th percentile, on most standardized tests or systems would be high average to above average.

However… a lot depends on how good the top 5–10 percent is in relation to how bad the bottom 5–10 percent is.

Let’s say… you’re in a school where the top 10% of your school gets perfect scores on their ACTs, score higher than 135 on their IQ tests, etc, and the bottom 10% isn’t too shoddy with 25’s on their ACTs… then your 77th percentile would be damn good.

However…........ if your school’s top 10% barely clears 20 on their ACTs and the bottom 10% can’t even pass the state graduation exams… 77th percentile would be, gulp, upsetting.

Those are two extreme examples—most schools do not have extreme results like this but are more balanced across the spectrum. Unless your school’s extreme, I would take a gamble that you’re above average and would be able to get into most colleges.

That would not get you into the top colleges unless you have some outstanding stellar attributes but would probably work for many colleges such as a state university. Think about what else you bring to the table.

Unless you’re gearing for valedictorian or saludictorian, class percentile is kind of moot. Better to be 77th percentile at a good school, than 99th percentile at a sucky school.

@emeraldisles Did you want a pat on the back for not being on the bottom? That’s a pretty low bar to set.

@King_Pariah You were smart enough to do most of the math; you are merely unwise. In other words, you have to be pretty smart to make that sort of fuckup.

However, @linguaphile raises a valid point. I scored a 97 on the ASVAB with 99s in four of the seven areas, and my CAT scores from 3rd to 9th grades were between 97th and 99th percentile. I also score 72/80 on the NFQT, which is the entrance exam to the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (a test they won’t even consider giving to people who score <80 on the ASVAB; you don’t want merely smart people working on nuclear reactors, you want fucking geniuses!). However, my SAT scores were a mere 1220 (on the old 1600-point scale) and I graduated high school 40th out of 160 in my class.

So which score do you believe? Am I a super-genius, or merely above-average?
What I believe is that the standards are so variable as to defy the term “standards”, thus rendering it all moot.

I think @jerv‘s mixed results underline the fact that there are different kinds of intelligence. A person who received a perfect score on the SAT might have no mind for nuclear propulsion, a person who received a perfect score on the NFQT might have no mind for medicine, and a person who received a perfect score on the MCAT might have no mind for history. Thus there is something a bit off in taking test scores to be indicative of intelligence rather than of particular aptitudes.