Class Rank Percentile
Calculator

A percentile tells you what proportion of the class you outperformed; being in the 80th percentile means you scored higher than roughly 80% of your classmates, not that you got 80% of the questions right. It's a relative measure, not an absolute score.

Class rank (like '12th out of 150') is an absolute position, while percentile converts that position into a proportion that's comparable across classes of different sizes. A rank of 12 out of 30 is a much stronger percentile than 12 out of 300.

Percentile depends on the full distribution of scores in the group, not just your own score, so the same raw score can land at different percentiles in different cohorts or years depending on how everyone else performed.

No, the 50th percentile just means your score was the median of the group, regardless of what raw score that corresponds to. If the exam was very easy, the median score itself could be 90%, and if it was hard, the median could be 40%.

Yes, if the group you're being compared against changes, or if other students' scores shift relative to yours, your percentile moves even though your own score hasn't changed at all, since it's calculated relative to everyone else.