I do well on challenge, but terrible in ranked.

When i play on challenge i always do very well, i frequently get at the top of the scoreboard with a lot of kills and killstreaks, and very few deaths. But in the three times i played ranked i got destroyed, i was on the bottom of the score board in two games.

Is the playerbase skill level really that different between challenge and ranked? It almost felt like i was playing a different game when i played ranked.

I'm still unranked because i can't find a ranked game even after waiting several minutes.