@al2simon Agree. There is nothing sadder to behold than the person who still boasts of their high school laurels 20 years later. Then again, for many students this will be the last time they shine.
slight thread hijack…the one accomplishment from high school that I do hear adults reference…indefinitely…is the BSA Eagle Award or the GSUSA Gold Award. Scouting seems to be forever. I mean, I have heard it mentioned at funerals.
“I’d probably look at them the same as if they told me that they’d won the most gold stars in Miss Maple’s kindergarten class.” OMG I really started laughing over this one!!!
I’m glad my kid took a class he was interested in freshman year, which turned out to be the difference between him being #1 and #2. One semester was unweighted, the second semester was honors and weighted. Yep, that was the only difference in four years. If he’d waited to try out this interest area until junior or senior year, he probably would have gone with a full-year honors or AP class to stay in the ranking race. At that point, I think it would have been hard to choose the interest area over the rank. But, even though he was a straight A student in grade school and middle school, it never occurred to him or to us to strategize his courses for freshman year of high school, in case he would eventually be in a rank race.
Honestly, I don’t know why kids put all this pressure on themselves. Life is very long and plenty stressful! I remember in grade school and middle school at conferences, the teachers would ask what we wanted the kids to get out of school that year. My answer was always for them to still like school and to still enjoy learning.
The strange 9-10th Junior School to 11-12th High School points to a school system with a massive graduating class. Can we assume that the future High School will have over 1500 kids in the graduating class? Being in the top 1-2% is probably all that is needed to get into a lottery school.
@thingamajig I grew up on the East Coast and attended what were called “country day schools”. The Boy Scouts were considered “militaristic” and so many parents did not want their kids to join. It was only years later that I realised what was going on. It was just after the Vietnam War, so emotions were still raw.
On the topic of high school honors, I actually interviewed someone who told me about being in National Honor Society. He was 24 or 25. I felt sorry for him.
Maybe others have mentioned this, but the awarding of official valedictorian status is often not done until after college applications have long since been submitted. Of course, ranking at the end of the sixth or seventh high school semester can be entered on an application, but that it not “valedictorian” at most schools in my area. As the parent of an accomplished regional/state/national fine arts student who was also valedictorian, the top schools seemed just as interested in his musical accomplishments as they did in his class ranking. Some universities offer scholarships to valedictorians, but in our case, far more schools offered merit aid based on the total academic package than on valedictorian status. Those academic scholarships were much more substantial than the valedictorian only awards. Actually, most financial aid packages were awarded before the official valedictorian designation was made. After my son’s first year of college, he promptly removed valedictorian from his resume because no one cared. On a side note - the valedictorian of his high school, one year later, was not accepted to any of the Ivy League schools despite having won numerous academic awards and completing research in conjunction with a professor at a prestigious university (also NMF and Intel Semi-Finalist). The salutatorian, with a perfect ACT score and National Merit Finalist status was also not accepted to an Ivy. There’s so much more to a college application and resume than class rank, in my opinion. I love to see kids take advantage of all the academics available to them while also pursuing their passions in music, athletics or whatever else interests them.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that if they have the highest grades and the hardest courses, that they will have the edge in admissions to highly competitive colleges. It seems to me that it’s more like there’s a threshold effect: are you in the top 5 or 10%? Have you taken the most rigorous classes? Mostly 5’s on your AP’s, good test scores? OK, then we’ll review your application seriously. What else you got?
It also can be a strategic mistake to think that getting into a top-ranked school increases your chances at med school. You are better off being at the top of your class at your safety than in the middle of the class at Harvard, or whatever your reach school happens to be. And that safety may give you merit money, decreasing the overall costs. A friend 's nephews are in exactly that position - one went to Princeton, didn’t get great grades, and can’t get into med school. The other went to a safety and had no trouble getting into med school.
@GTAustin UT acceptance is guaranteed by the law if student is in top 7-10% (depending on the ratio of seats and applicants). No Val with 2300 SAT can be denied without getting sued.
@WorryHurry411, I said get their major, not just admitted to UT. Getting into the engineering majors, especially bio and chemical, and CS is a crapshoot. I saw many great students with high SAT scores, around 2300, with good ECs not get into their major. I also saw students with lower stats, sometimes significantly, get accepted to these competitive majors. The students that did not get accepted to their major were not given their second choice. They were left to pick a major when the system opened up to all students admitted that were not given their first choice. Math, economics and other technical majors in CNS were filled within minutes. So, yes, they got admitted to UT but many were shut out of their major.