Is it better to rank top in a low ranked school or... (1 Viewer)

[Rohanco]

Is it better to rank top (1st or 2nd) in a low ranked school, or is it better to rank reasonably well (4th - 6th) in an average ranked school.

Sorry for a generic sounding question here. But my reason for asking is that I've moved school's since I begun my HSC, the school that I'm at now is ranked quite poorly at about 530ish place, where as the school I was at before hand was ranked about 280th. I wanted to know if 1st's and 2nd's in my new school would scale better or worse than 4th's, 5th's and 6th's in my old school.

Thanks heaps

 

[someth1ng]

It's difficult to say because it varies between every case. Personally, if you can top a bottom school by a large amount, you can top even a selective school. I was 1st in Science back in Year 10 at a rank 600 school and then, I moved to a rank ~35 selective school and topped Physics (usually near the top for Chemistry too).

Generally, if you're rank 1, it'll be totally up to you, you have no chance of getting dragged down and hence, what you get is what you deserve. On the other hand, if you're top 5 or so, you are relying on your cohort to some extent and if they bomb out, you're screwed.

Personally, I'd prefer to be rank 1 at any school.