Depends on the school. At the public high school I attended --several years on various top 100 lists and top 10 in the state-- class ranking was most definitely

Depends on the school. At the public high school I attended --several years on various top 100 lists and top 10 in the state-- class ranking was most definitely a shaming of the "weird" minority of kids who were taking "normal" classes. These normal classes were on a completely different scoring tier that ensured the students taking them could not even break the 50th percentile. And coming from Texas, where getting into the top 10 percent of your graduating class is an automatic ticket to any state university, the competition was most definitely fierce.