<p>Hi guys,
I am planing on becoming valedictorian for my high school. Right now I am competing against 1 person. Do you guys have any advice? </p>
<p>Note:
Pre-Ap's, Ap's,and Honor's= 5 points </p>
<pre><code> Regular= 4 Points
</code></pre>
<p>Oh,sorry if I put this thread in the wrong place! I am new here.</p>
<p>Take the most rigorous classes you can manage while getting the highest grades you can manage to appeal to colleges. At my school, the ranking system is the same, which is unfortunate because someone with all honors can be valedictorian while someone who really challenges himself might not. Most colleges would prefer to see a rigorous schedule with APs than a valedictorian with only honors classes.</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>As a note my GPA at the end of the year should be a 4.54 (freshmen). Is that a good start?
(I originally said 4.7,sorry)</p>
<p>Obviously, take a lot of weighted classes and get As in them. Different high schools weight grades differently and they don’t all offer the same number of weighted classes, so I have no idea what your 4.7 GPA means.
(Taking challenging classes and getting As in them is more important than being the valedictorian, if there’s ever a conflict between the two. If there’s a challenging class you want to take that isn’t weighted because the ranking system is messed up, you should still take it.)</p>
<p>Ok, thanks for the advice.</p>
<p>Well I assume the max GPA is 5.0 a 4.7 is a great start. Don’t stress yourself out over coming valedictorian if you take rigorous class and get good grade in them it well come.</p>
<p>Oh, sorry guys my GPA for the end of my freshmen year should be 4.54, not 4.7. </p>
<p>I gotta be honest- the road to being valedictorian should be fairly obvious. Be smarter than everyone else. There’s not much more to it than that haha</p>
<p>What a distracting goal! A much better goal would be to be the best student you can possibly be. An obsession over grades, something increasingly common, is unfortunate. More than ever before, many students arrive at college with little focus and without a clue about what they want to major in or do. They spent their high school years cultivating As and trying to beat out peers rather than cultivating interests and trying to collaborate with peers. Any intellectual interests or passion for anything academic is long gone. Instead of genuine achievements, like playing in All State or conducting an experiment or winning academic competitions like AIME, these students ran after points and grades to beat out the other students. Valedictorian usually means the top GPA in the class. Now what? So what? It is far better to be intellectually driven, aware of what is happening in the world, engaged in meaningful academic endeavors that you value, hungry to learn than to have grades as your top motivation to be a stellar student. A valedictorian whose primary interest is grades is not a good student even with the top grades in the class. </p>
<p>Top 5% is enough to open the eyes of most college officers.</p>
<p>Don’t stress Valedictorian too much.</p>
<p>“I am planing on becoming valedictorian for my high school.”</p>
<p>Yeah, listen to what @sockittoum has to say.</p>
<p>I think it is pretty obvious that you take the hardest classes offered and get all A’s, preferably with high percentages just in case it comes down to that in the end. At my school its different, we can have more than one valedictorian since you just have to meet certain course and test score requirements and have a 4.0 u/w. </p>
<p>Don’t listen to everyone that says you shouldn’t pursue your goals - they are YOUR goals, not theirs. I would, however, recommend that you view the race to valedictorian as a competition against the courses you take and against yourself - not others. If you become obsessed with identifying your competition for the top, you might miss out on friendships. And do make sure that if at any point, chasing valedictorian status starts to affect your health and mental health, or you find yourself very unhappy, you can stop. Your worth is not a GPA. (But I do understand the desire, nonetheless, I’m just giving you advice as a senior valedictorian candidate.)</p>
<p>Good luck! Work hard, remember to keep up some extracurriculars for college admissions. :)</p>
<p>I think you need to take a hard look at why this is so important to you. Is it worth giving up arts classes for? Is it worth taking classes you aren’t particularly interested in so you can stuff another AP into your schedule? Is it worth giving up EC’s that you won’t have time for or won’t be able to schedule?</p>
<p>I think you should focus on taking a challenging high school program in which you pursue and explore your individual interests, and not worry about that calculation when you make your decisions. Make choices that interest you and make you happy, not to satisfy some number-crunching machine. It may seem like a big deal to you now, but you would be astonished how quickly that label will seem completely irrelevant. No one will care.</p>
<p>@Kathika101 slip sedatives in the current valedictorian’s drink. Keep her stored on an isolated island until graduation. There ya go, valedictorian.</p>
<p>You don’t have to worry too much about the other competitor, as long as you keep up your own GPA (especially through senioritis time) I think you’ll find things fall into place. Over the first two quarters of my senior year, I jumped up from 6th to 3rd in my class (our school doesn’t weight AP’s or honors) just by maintaining my GPA. Good luck!</p>
<p>Eliminate the competition… easy. Haha jk, if life were like this, everyone would be dead. Work hard and no foul play! I once knew of a person who had tampered with a final and they took the consequences. </p>
<p>It’s far more important to get out of 4 point classes than to take as many 5 point classes as you can!
There are valedictorians that somehow work their way around the system such as getting exempt from these classes with methods such as waiver exams, injuries out of PE, filling up the schedule space with non-GPA affecting classes, and/or community college replacements!
And then you get valedictorians with higher GPAs than someone who simply took every AP/honors course possible with straight A’s (excluding foreign language and the arts minus art history)</p>
<p>I ranked 13 in my graduating class and thus regret any efforts I put in racing for a top 10 spot when quite a few of them abused the system to death. But you’re well ahead in the race, and hopefully there is a title for salutatorian just in case!
I hope this makes you feel good, as I’ve already moved on from this race and have collegiate goals.</p>
<p>I really don’t recommend applying too much focus on valedictorian-ship. </p>
<p>Just being in the top %1-5 is enough; look at the STATS threads as evidence</p>
<p>“I am planing on becoming valedictorian for my high school. Right now I am competing against 1 person.” My sincere advice is that you can spend the next 3-1/2 years regarding this undoubtedly talented person as a friend and collaborator, and you can help each other to make your high school experience the best it can be. Or you can regard this person as your competitor and each of your successes as the other person’s loss. Think about it. </p>