<p>The only competition is in the top 5, but there’s a kid now with a 4.0 (my school doesn’t weight) while the others are at 3.99. I’m one of the 3.99’rs, and while we’re pretty good friends (we were in that accelerated program in middle school), there’s obviously that vibe: “I want to beat you. I know you’re smart, but I can prove I’m better.”</p>
<p>Yeah. Yikes.</p>
<p>We don’t have rankings or valedictorian or salutatorian. </p>
<p>Instead our school uses the cum laude system. It’s really nice.</p>
<p>@Mascara - I know the feeling. Me and 2 went to the same elementary school, so we’ve basically been competing with each other since 1st grade. But we’re still friends. And we’re distantly related too. Which makes it slightly awkward, but ya know. </p>
<p>@DavidSSabb - The top 3 in my school are all taking 5 APs, so it’s a similar situation</p>
<p>Everyone with a GPA above 4.0 is valedictorian at my school, so…</p>
<p>Two years ago, the Val and Sal were dating. Heh.</p>
<p>@AmiChan: I wish my school did that… sigh.</p>
<p>@sforzandoxIII: I hate the competition, quite frankly. I do think that CC has both humbled me and made me more cynical. 
Are any of your close friends competing with you? Some of the more competitive kids are angry at my SAT scores. Meh, idk what I did.</p>
<p>I’m ambivalent about the competition factor. The competing is making me do better than I ever have, which is also theoretically improving my chances at colleges. At the same time, I spent the majority of the 1st and 2nd quarter stressed out. This quarter is less stressful because of the fact that minor fluctuations in my grades really won’t change the rank (which our GCs won’t actually say) at this point. And, regardless, I know I can maintain my average anyway. It’s really a mixed bag though.</p>
<p>My closest friends are 7, 8, 10, 13, 16 (best friend), and 32 (best friend) . So they’re not actually competing with me, although some are competing with each other. I’m also good friends with 5, but she also isn’t competing with me, even though she definitely could if she wanted to. It’s really the competition with 1 and 2 that’s the most heated. I have most of classes with 1, so I know that he’s slipped slightly this year. As for 2, I work with her, so even though I don’t see her in school, I still see her every week day for at least 3 hours. We were definitely closer friends before this whole rank thing started, but we were never best friends or anything.</p>
<p>Not really any “real” competition at my school because everyone is pretty chill, anyone of the top 10 people of the class could be val or sal because none of them have gotten any Bs and we pretty much all have the same classes, the only reason I’m currently val is because I took an extra AP freshman year while everyone else took stuff like speech. The person who really should be val is ranked 17th because Chinese isn’t a weighted course for some reason and he took that for 4 years (he is going to Princeton). I’m not sure if we are doing co-vals this year because technically another kid is ahead of me gpa wise, but he transferred in from Pakistan, so I dont really know as of right now what is going to happen.</p>
<p>There are some people who take classes pass/fail in order to inflate their weighted GPA, so it’s kind of cutthroat, but not really. I was ranked 4th, but now I’m ranked 3rd because of this. It’s lame, especially because I’m taking more AP/honors classes than the other 3 people are… and one of the person (ranked 3rd) got a B last semester… =/</p>
<p>People don’t really care about class ranks at my school. People mostly care about what grades they are getting, not about what rank they are. I’m ranked first in my class, but there are probably others that are tied with me.</p>
<p>All people at my school above a 4.2 weighted are valedictorians.</p>
<p>Which makes… about 50.</p>
<p>If my school used a 4 scale for GPA, there would be a lot of vals. I would definitely be one. So would the rest of the top… 15 or so I think.</p>
<p>Val and Sal at my mom’s school got married. Their daughter is in my math class, and this chick is a nut. Complete and total nut. </p>
<p>(And that, boys and girls, is the downside of noncompetitive ranks: gettin’ too friendly with the other smarties and producing insane offspring obsessed with Star Wars :D)</p>
<p>Sent from my Desire HD using CC</p>
<p>My high school is semi-competitive. As of right now there is a 24-way tie for first due to the fact my school doesn’t do the A+ or A- thing. I am one of them and plan on distancing myself from everyone junior year by taking 2 AP’s and 6 Honors.</p>
<p>@laughingworld: Haha, what a great combination! The AP Calculus teacher’s daughter is in my class! She has never made below a 99 in any math class she has ever taken!</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank and doesn’t have val/sal. </p>
<p>I’ve got a 99 and I know 2-3 kids with 98s and another few with 97s. Then there’s a large gap until the lower 90s.</p>
<p>Very competitive… I’m in a Texas public school so class rank has a HUGE impact because of the top 10 percent rule (top 9 for UT).</p>