Adding more to this thread, I do notice a weird trend of the lower ranked students in the top 10 of high schools going to higher ranked/more selective schools. I just learned that at my cousin’s school, the Val is going to NYU, the sal is going to Rutgers, and the third ranking student (my cousin) is going to Princeton. Other top 10s are going to ivies and Stanford. This is anecdotal though. Still very weird how often it happens in my area.
I go a large non-competitive high school and the most impressive college any of my classmates got into was 6th and she is going to attend Brown.
The valedictorian in my school is going to NYU, salutatorian is going to Marist, and the 3rd is going to RPI, and then most of the people from #4-20 range are going to the local community college, UAlbany, or some other SUNY/CUNY
I was #12 and ended up at Smith.
most of the people after #20 are going to community college or the military or Mount Saint Mary College, or a for-profit school
The valedictorian and salutatorian weren’t grade “grubby,” I took the same-ish classes as them. They were just good at time management and whatnot.
@lostaccount I feel like that’s an unfair characterization. The val of one of the most competitive high schools in Texas is one of my best friends, and he’s a great person who has an unbelievable passion for physics. He is amazing at just about every subject he learns, which is why he’s first of about 1200 students, but I know he isn’t a grade grubber.
By this account Phelps and Bolt aren’t talented or hard working athletes, just medal grubbers.
^ But it’s totally different.
Salutatorian and valedictorian are trinkets that date from the time most students weren’t going to college. It was the end of their academic career so it mattered . Nowadays, college matters, and such ‘chocolate medals’ are of no consequence, no more than 5th grade gold stars.
Forsaking a class in order to get a weighted class in - even if it’s AP human geography in which they have zero interest - has nothing in common with training for the Olympics.