<p>You know in high school, how everyone knew the bright kid(s) in class. In college, do people really give a damn about who the best student in class is or who has a perfect 4.0?</p>
<p>Hell yes! The fact that you’re one out of hundreds or thousands is a mega deal.
Telling a future employer that you beat everyone else is something that sets you apart.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Many colleges do NOT rank students like high schools do.</p>
<p>Do colleges actually have Valedictorian as a thing?</p>
<p>I don’t believe colleges have valedictorian. But they often have cumulative GPA honor designations such as summa cum laude, magna cum laude. These sometimes appear as a special seal on you diploma and are noted on your transcript. I imagine they look impressive to potential employers when you are 1st out of college as they show you are among the top students of your class. (though I suppose the GPA also does that).</p>
<p>Ditto what swimcatsmom said. There are also some departmental awards for top students. High gpa will probably help get you that first job, but one you begin working, nobody knows or cares what you did in college - what counts is what you produce now. If fact, I am told that it is sometimes considered arrogant to hang your degrees and awards around your workplace.</p>
<p>I would think it would be a plus when applying for grad school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s arrogant but rather ironic in some cases. My C-student friend is now a department head and one of his employees was a super star student at our school, way back when. There are way too many variables in one’s career.</p>
<p>Being a top student at your college opens plenty of doors while still in college, of course.</p>
<p>If you’re asking if all the other students KNOW that you’re a top student – um, no. I don’t think so, anyway. My kids don’t really want anybody to know.</p>
<p>I assume you’re asking for that reason? You want more privacy with your grades?</p>
<p>Once you’re awarded something new, for being a top student, you’ll probably find out about the other kids who received the same awards – and then you’ll each know of each other. But it seems that most of my kids’ smart friends are like my kids – they like to keep their grades, scholarships, and honors private.</p>
<p>But being a top student has its benefits. You can put that on your resume while looking for work (while still in college), or on applications for more scholarships, internships, study abroad, etc. The benefits multiply exponentially. As a top student, you might get the such-and-such award, and with that award on your resume, you might get selected for your school’s highest academic classification, if you’re not there already (President’s or Regents or what have you), or for a special research group, or whatever, and with that on your resume, you might be one of the few selected to attend a special study abroad program or a rare internship. And the study abroad might be all expenses paid! These things tend to multiply.</p>
<p>I’m not exactly sure why you’re asking, but it seems to me to be the best of all worlds. The other kids don’t know, and you still get all the benefits! :)</p>
<p>In addition to cum laude honors, some schools also have PBK designation.</p>
<p>No, not really. My college didn’t even rank us - we knew who the top 10 seniors were with the highest GPAs because it’s tradition for them to lead our Class Day exercises, but other than that, no - and we didn’t know which one of them had the top GPA!</p>
<p>We also had Phi Beta Kappa and Latin honors.</p>
<p>From my perspective, as someone who reads a lot of transcripts from a lot of graduate school applicants for many years at 3 schools (two top US schools, one top Canadian): we could not possibly care less. </p>
<p>We really don’t notice anything on your transcript but what you took, where, and the grades you received. Never once in my life did I sit in a selection meeting and hear someone say, “and they were X at their college!”. We could not possibly care less what kind of designation you received from your school (especially as we don’t have any sense of what the cut off was at a particular school, or how many of your cohort received the same, and we know too well the ridiculous proliferation of designations in college, along with grade inflation). It could be it’s so ordinary that we are indifferent. FWIW, I can not recall a transcript that provides any kind of ranking comparing students to others (but the letters we receive from the faculty one has worked with usually tell us how one compares to all other students the faculty member has encountered).</p>
<p>It DOES help to be an outstanding student in your class, so the faculty come to know you, want to work with you, and to mentor you if you want to go to grad school. But it’s not like the faculty are aware of your GPA nor particularly care per se. They know brilliant students when they see them, and it isn’t about your GPA. There are too many perfect GPA but not so bright “grinders” out there as it is quite remarkable what one can do by selective course taking and a lot of memorization. Likewise, it’s very possible that some of the most amazing students do not have the top GPA, for a lot of very good reasons. We are looking for intellectually curious students with amazing insight and analytical reasoning ability…they will have good grades but not necessarily the highest ones. But hearing them in class, working with them closely on problems, you can readily tell when they are beyond their peers and have the right cognitive horsepower for a PhD.</p>