Highland Park school officials will stop ranking all but the top 10 percent of its high school students this fall, saying the current system puts other students with high grades and test scores at a disadvantage when applying to colleges.

The change arose from concerns that colleges may pass over students in the remaining 90 percent even though their academic performance may outshine students in the top 10 percent of other school districts.

"Our bottom 10 percent kids were equal to the median numbers in the state of Texas and across the country," said Peggy Bessellieu, a parent who served on a committee that studied the issue for almost a year.

Highland Park ISD appears to be the only public school system in Texas to quit ranking all students by grade point average. However, a number of local private schools also do not.

Many Highland Park students earn GPAs of 4.0 or higher, which means that class rank is sometimes decided by very narrow margins. The committee found, for example, that a student with a GPA of 3.89 might only earn a class rank of 115, with 25 percent of the other students ranked higher.

"We had students that the ranking was hurting them," said board President Jeffrey A. Barnes. "This issue has been studied for a long time, it's been debated for a long time."

Highland Park's demographics play a part in the debate, which has also emerged in other small and affluent school districts across the country.

Highland Park students are mostly from prosperous households. All seven campuses are consistently rated exemplary by the state. And almost 98 percent of high school seniors attend college.

Other competitive public high schools in a number of states – including Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey – are either eliminating or limiting the reporting of class rank.

Highland Park's new practice is designed to make colleges take a closer look at the students' academic achievements, rather than rely on class rank.

"I think they're going to have to look deeper," Bessellieu said. "They may place more weight on the standardized tests. They'll look at your activities, they'll look at your leadership, they'll look at your community activities."

Colleges are already relying less on class rank, according to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. The group found that only 23 percent of colleges considered class rank important in 2007, down from 42 percent in 1993. Far more important to colleges are grades in college prep classes, the strength of curriculum, and SAT or ACT test scores.

Yet 78 percent of public high schools regularly provide class rank for individual students, the admissions group found, compared with just 11 percent of private high schools.

The class rank issue in Texas has become more important over the last decade, after the state instituted a requirement that all school districts identify the top 10 percent of high school students. Those graduates are guaranteed a spot at any Texas public university.

Last fall, Highland Park sent 72 graduates to the University of Texas at Austin – the most of any high school in the state. It's a record number of students for Highland Park at UT, based on data that the university has collected since 1996, shortly before the top 10 percent law took effect.

The law has long sparked debate about whether class rank is a fair measure of student achievement. Recently, UT officials said they were on the verge of having every spot taken by students based solely on class rank.

In response, the Texas Legislature this year set a 75 percent cap on the number of top 10 percent students that UT-Austin must automatically admit. That could potentially limit the number of students who get automatic admission.

The debate in Highland Park was brewing long before the 75 percent cap was approved. School officials say the decision to stop ranking most students has wide support among students and parents.

Some also thought eliminating class rankings should reduce stress among students and it could encourage some to take classes of interest, such as band, orchestra or art, rather than focus only on classes that are most heavily weighted to boost their GPA.

"We feel our students are very capable," said parent Margie Bankhead, who was a member of the committee that studied the issue. "It seemed that the ranking system didn't represent how good a student was."

Douglas C. Smellage, vice president of the board of trustees, said school officials heard the same thing from most parents, and decided last week to give school district officials the go-ahead to begin the new practice.

"The board is unanimous on it," he said.

Staff writer Holly Hacker contributed to this report.

•In 1997, the Texas Legislature passed the top 10 percent law. High school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class are automatically admitted to any Texas public university.

It was passed to promote ethnic diversity at Texas public universities – a federal court had banned schools from considering race in college admissions. The top 10 percent law ensured that every high school, including predominantly minority ones, could send graduates to top schools. Then in 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could consider race in admissions.

•Since then, it has become common practice for Texas high schools to keep complete rankings of the entire senior classes. Many colleges and universities take those class rankings into account in admission decisions.