What is the consensus rank?
The weighted median of where published analyst boards actually have a player — a statement about the room, not about us.
The consensus rank is what the analyst community collectively thinks. We ingest published boards, weight them, and take the median of where a player sits across them.
A median rather than an average, deliberately. One analyst with an outlying opinion should not drag the number; the median describes where the middle of the room actually is, which is what a reader means when they ask what "the consensus" thinks.
Boards are weighted rather than counted equally, by how their past rankings actually turned out. An analyst with a measured record of getting classes right counts for more than one without.
A player needs coverage from several outlets before we will state a consensus for him at all. That means a meaningful share of any live class has no consensus rank — which is honest rather than missing. A "consensus" drawn from one analyst is not one.
The number exists so you can see where the model disagrees with the room, and by how much. That gap is the most interesting thing on the board, and it is the entire premise of the sleepers and reaches pages.