Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series.

In April, the top 10 students in the Whitehall High School Class of 2012 were called to the principal's office, one by one, to learn their class ranks.

Annemarie Hartzell waited. But she was never called.

"I was really upset because I knew I was in the top 10 for the last three years," said Hartzell, who will soon be a freshman at Elizabethtown College. "I went home in tears."

The next day, she learned from the guidance office that she was 11th out of 367 students.

Guidance counselors told Hartzell she was bumped out of the top 10 because of the weighting of a full-year advanced placement biology class, which she was not taking.

Her mother, Pat Hartzell, called the school and got the same answer, she said.

"I realized my hands were tied. If that was the rankings, that was the rankings," Pat Hartzell said. "I told Annemarie she should be proud."

The Hartzells accepted the rankings. Meanwhile, the top 10 students were honored at a dinner and given $150 checks by the Whitehall Exchange Club, which has since disbanded. They were also honored with a special mention in the graduation program.

When her transcript arrived in the mail in early July, however, Annemarie Hartzell noticed she was ranked seventh in the class.

"This is probably just a typo," she remembers thinking. The document was stamped "unofficial," making her believe the rank listed was the one calculated before she was knocked out of the top 10, she said.

Then on July 16, a letter of apology arrived.

"As you are already aware ... there was movement among our top 10 students this past academic year before graduation," reads the letter signed by high school Principal Christopher A. Schiffert. "Once all final course grades including final examinations were factored into the overall GPAs, our class rankings did again shift."

Not the only one

When Keri Lindenmuth received her transcript, she started to cry.

"She said, 'Guess what number I am,'" recalls her mother, Diane. "I said, '11th.' She said, 'No, I'm sixth.'"

Keri Lindenmuth had been in the top 10 at the beginning of her senior year but was not among the top 10 named in April. Because she had been ranked in and out of the top 10 during her high school career, she said, she had no reason to question the new ranking – until the letter of apology arrived July 16.

"I thought it was just Keri," Diane Lindenmuth said. A few days later, when Keri Lindenmuth and Annemarie Hartzell were on their way to a flea market together, Pat Hartzell broached the subject.

"They're very sensitive and they didn't want to cause any dissension," she said of the girls' reluctance to discuss the situation. "So I just asked in the car."

After opening up to each other, the girls talked to friends and learned others had been affected.

Among the others was Chad Wagner who learned in April he was not in the top 10.

"He was shocked because he was in the top 10 since his freshman year," said his mother, Janice.

Janice Wagner said she tried to no avail to find out what his class rank actually was.

He graduated knowing only that he was in the top 20, said Chad Wagner, who will study engineering at Lehigh University this fall.

When his transcript arrived in early July, he learned he was ranked 10th.

Issues with changing class ranks went all the way up to number one.

Mary Brand learned in July from her transcript that she was actually valedictorian instead of salutatorian.

Megan Berner, who graduated thinking she was ranked third, learned from her transcript that she was actually the class salutatorian.

But, Brand and Berner did not receive apologies or any other acknowledgment from the school.

They didn't even receive the correct medals, given annually to the valedictorian and salutatorian for graduation. Brand has only the salutatorian medal she was originally given. Berner still has no medal.

Like the others, Berner was surprised to learn she ranked lower than expected.

"I was fortunate enough to be ranked second throughout most of my high school career; so when I was called down to the office and found out I was ranked third at the time our class ranks were calculated, I was really disappointed," said Berner, who will pursue a double major in actuarial science and mathematics at Lebanon Valley College.

Brand, who will major in English or psychology at Lafayette College, said high school Principal Christopher Schiffert was kind in April when telling her she was second instead of first in the class.

"He started out by saying he did not win any awards in high school," said Brand, who said her goal was to do her best rather than to be first. Schiffert then showed her a photo of himself as the class clown, she said. "It made me feel like I could laugh at him so I wouldn't be upset."

No do-overs

"If it was me, I don't know that I would have done anything," Pat Hartzell said. "But I know how hard these kids worked."

Through no fault of their own, Annemarie Hartzell, Keri Lindenmuth and Chad Wagner missed out on the accolades they deserved, she said. "Not that you need a lot of glory but it would have been nice to be acknowledged."

At Pat Hartzell's insistence, the school arranged to have a photo taken of the three of them as "additional top 10 students" for the media. However, the reason for having additional top 10 students was not fully explained to The Press photographer.

Diane Lindenmuth said it was as if the school went with the rankings at a random moment in time.

"At Tuesday at 3 o'clock, that was the rankings. They didn't wait till 5 o'clock Friday. That's how I feel," she said.

She brought her concerns to the Aug. 13 school board meeting.

"I was going to just let it go," she said. "But that morning, I woke up and said to my husband ... I think I need to go to that school board meeting, just so they know that it upset us."

Keri was unable to attend the meeting because of an honors picnic at Lehigh Carbon Community College, where she will study on a full scholarship for the next two years. However, she wrote a letter to each of the school board members about the experience. In it she described receiving Schiffert's letter of apology.

"The one thing the letter didn't explain was how," Keri Lindenmuth wrote. "How did this happen?"

"I can assure you we are looking at righting that situation and maybe getting rid of class rankings," Superintendent John W. Corby said at the board meeting.

Schiffert apologized, saying he can make "no excuses."

However, no one at the board meeting answered Keri Lindenmuth's question.

How and why

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lorie Hackett returned The Press's call to Corby Monday.

"The calculation was done the way we've always done it," she said. "It just so happened this year, because of the nature of some of the classes, the specific numbers changed."

She said the students affected have been honored and the district is reviewing its practices.

"We just want to move forward," she said.

She directed further inquiries to Schiffert.

"The real problem with this was not necessarily the AP biology [course], though that was certainly a problem," the principal told The Press Wednesday morning. "It's the timing of when these things get calculated."

The process and timing were determined in order to coordinate the information with the publication of things such as the graduation program. It will be changed next year, he said.

"It just can't be that way," he said.

Schiffert will discuss the process of and challenges involved in calculating class rank, along with what went wrong this year, in more detail for the second article in this series.

Keri Lindenmuth's letter to the school board countered claims that the school can't do anything about the situation now.

"You can publish the real top 10 in the paper or yearbook. There is plenty you can do to make it up to the students affected by this mess," she wrote.

"With the college admissions process being so competitive today, class ranks can be a deciding factor that many colleges take into consideration for admittance and scholarships," said Berner. "My hope is that this ranking situation can be rectified so that future classes at WHS will not encounter this same dilemma."

Andrew Mark also contributed to this story.