I’m a senior at my high school atm, and I just found out two pieces of good news: I’m valedictorian of my school and I scored a summer internship with a pretty well-renowned professor at my local university. For valedictorian status, are there any scholarships (not college-specific…I checked my college and they do not offer scholarships for valedictorians specifically) or other benefits that I can search/apply to that are specifically for valedictorians? Is it merely a title, or are there rewards specific to my future that I can reap from being valedictorian? Should I report this information to the colleges I got Waitlisted to (Harvey Mudd, Rice, UChicago, and Cornell)? Would both of these pieces of information move me up the waitlists for each of these schools if I submit them in formal Letters of Continued Interest?
Congratulations. IMO it is more of a nice title than anything else. Once you start college, nobody will care. You can mention it if you send a letter of continued interest to your waitlist schools. I’ve never heard of a scholarship for valedictorians though.
Sorry, the title is basically worthless. It wouldn’t matter much if you were #1 or #5 or #10, esp. not at those schools.
You should still submit LOCI’s though.
I’d say there’s no harm in casually mentioning it in those LOCIs, although the schools might already know based on the high school report your GC submitted.
Some states have Val scholarships. Check with your GC.
Congratulations on being a valedictorian!! Nice. The thing about LOCIs is that ideally you have news to put in them. Telling them you are a val and the internship are good excuses to write a LOCI and so why not do it? Does it move you up? I don’t know! But it doesn’t hurt, right? The only reason not to send a school a LOCI and this information is if the school specifically says in their waitlist policies not to contact them with more information so check on that first.
^^^ this
What state are you in? Some schools do offer Val scholarships.
I would definitely tell the schools that you are a valedictorian, in your continued interest letter, as another person mentioned. It’s very impressive to have this status.
Not sure if its worth mentioning at a school like Mudd, though…where, something like 40% of their freshman class graduated valedictorian.
Nonetheless, its still an impressive achievement. Congratulations!
In other threads along these lines, it’s been mentioned again and again that there aren’t a lot of perks (admissions, scholarships etc) associated with it. Being among the top students at your HS, yes, being #1, not really.
I think the internship is more impressive than being Val. Hurry up and let your WL schools know.