Selection Rank is a well known algorithm in computer science to find the ith smallest (or largest) element in an array in linear time. If the elements are unique, you can find the ith smallest or largest element in expected O(n) time. The code below implements finding the ith smallest element in javascript.

selectionRank

var selectionRank = function(array, rank){
	// randomly select a pivot
	var pivotIndex = Math.floor( (Math.random() * array.length) );
	var pivot = array[pivotIndex];
	// left array stores the smallest <rank> elements in the array 
  var leftArr = [];
  var rightArr = [];

  // partition into left and right arrays
	for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++){
		if (array[i] <= pivot){
			leftArr.push(array[i]);
		} else {
			rightArr.push(array[i]);
		}
	}

  // re-apply algorithm based on the array states
	if (leftArr.length === rank){ 
	  // if there are exactly <rank> elements in the left array
		return leftArr;
	} else if ( leftArr.length > rank){ 
	  // if the left array size is larger than <rank>, repeat the algorithm
		return selectionRank(leftArr, rank);
	} else { 
	  // if the left array is smaller than <rank>, repeat the algorithm 
	  // by passing in the right array, 
	  // and a new rank, i.e <rank> - leftArr.length
	  // the result returned is concatenated to the left array
		var tempResult = selectionRank(rightArr, (rank-leftArr.length));
		tempResult.forEach(function(element, index, collection){
			leftArr.push(element);
		})
		return leftArr;
	}
};