Our district doesn't do class rank anymore. Any honor rolls that kids make are based on unweighted GPA's.I know in our district junior/senior year though you can take one class pass/fail but that doesn't help in your case. I agree with GF2 with it being a "plus" though it lowers the GPA. This may seem dumb but I'm not sure why you get a grade for taking band. High School athletes don't get graded for being on a sports team.
Our district also does not use class rank or award valedictorian.
This is off topic, but you have touched a sore point for me, so I'd like to explain why kids can get grades for band (sort of like getting a grade for taking art, or architectural drawing, or computers, or... I'm not sure I get the distinction where band is not a class).
I don't know about other districts, but here, the wind ensemble and highest level of symphony are considered to be the equivalent of college level courses in the amount of work and skill expected. I think the comparison with sports doesn't add up, as the music ensembles meet for a specific class period every day, during the day (thus kids taking these courses have one fewer period to take what you might consider to be more academic courses). In addition to written work, they are tested and graded on specific aspects of their playing (technical skill, musicality) and have to submit recordings of their parts for part checks, There is quite a bit of theory, performance, practice, lessons during school, etc- the amount of work that is done and evaluated is easily more than most of my daughter's other honors courses. The fact that this work is "rewarded" with a grade is unimportant, as others have mentioned, it is the activity itself that holds the value. However, the fact that she can take fewer electives or can't easily double up on academic classes means that having the course graded is appropriate, in my mind. She's certainly being evaluated on her work, just as a visual artist, or student in other non-traditionally academic subject would be evaluated.
