Influence of undergraduate class rank on gradute admission

[Farzin Shams]

I'm currently a Computer Engineering undergraduate student at the State University of Campinas (Brazil), and according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings, my university is ranked second best in Latin America. I'm considering to pursue a graduate level education on a top-tier american university.

Brazilian universities don't have GPA, but they do have class ranks to show academic performance. I'm currently in position 25/93 (top 27%), and I've seen that some institutions look for students who are top 5 or 10% in their class. I would like to know if the graduate admissions office will take into account the fact that my university is one of the best in Latin America, thus it's much more difficult to achieve top rank because my classmates are Brazilian elite students.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Welcome to PF;
It depends on the office and how diligent they want to be.
The US colleges which admit nonUS students usually have a system of ranking foreign tertiary institutions ... when they receive your application they will look at your qualifications and look up the college in their list and apply the ranking accordingly. Going to a good college will certainly help your application. You'll probably also want to get a letter of recommendation and maybe do some extra-curricular research/work: discuss it with your profs.