<p>I was #3 in high school and would have been #1 except that the girl who became #1 asked for a certain grade to be changed and I didn’t. Oh well. Guess I learned a life lesson! The parents who agonize over this should just be shot. It’s just not that big of a deal the day after hs graduation is over with.</p>
<p>Our kids’ school doesn’t announce val / sal, but they do announce the top 2 percent. I’m not really sure how they picked the 2 who spoke at graduation (one a girl going to Stanford, one a boy going to Grinnell). Maybe they were #1 and #2, maybe they were just picked / voted on. Whatever.</p>
<p>I can’t believe how messy things have gotten for OP’s school!</p>
<p>At our school, Val and Sal are determined by cumulative weighted GPA at the end of first semester, senior year. There are 1, sometimes 2 vals. So far, always 1 sal. Vals give speeches; sals sometimes do, sometimes don’t, give speeches, but have something else to do in the program. Vals and sals are the first ones to get diplomas. </p>
<p>One year there were 3 kids going into senior year with all As on their transcript–2 of them had one more IB class (IB music) than the other one, so had a higher GPA. The one kid got a B in one of his fall senior classes, so that took care of any problem that might have arisen with litigious parents.</p>
<p>But frankly, the honor of being val or sal is nice, but nothing that the kids or parents scheme and sue each other over. Yeesh!</p>
<p>At my high school, kids had to try out for spots to give speeches at graduation.</p>
<p>My S1 is # 3 in his graduating class. He was rewarded with several nice scholarships. The Sal in his class got her position by cheating on several exams. You know how teachers recycle their exams over the years…She just asked a few upper classman for these test given last year before the exams and there you have it. It is interesting that kids nowadays all refuse to bring it up to the school official…Of course, it is the same when it comes to the drug (pot)use at school. There is something wrong with kids today.</p>
<p>Son’s school did not do val or sal. Speech from class president and person voted upon to give the speech. Cousin’s school had 8 vals and they all gave speeches. With 350 kids in the graduating class, guest speaker and the other things that had to be done, made it an interminably long graduation.</p>
<p>The val of my middle school son’s graduation class had a wonderful speech where he defined the word “valedictorian” from its latin roots. Really it does not mean “first in the class” at all, and just means to “say farewell” from the original Latin. So having the student voted to say farewell is not off the mark rather than someone who wins the spot by shavings of a point in gpa that has become a much disputed contest in many schools.</p>
<p>My (large public) school does not select val and sal. Instead the students with unweighted 4.0 GPAs are considered “vals.” My graduating class had 49 (out of 400) “valedictorians.”
I really disapprove of the way my school handles this. Because they do not weight, some top students who take all AP classes are not recognized while students who have never set foot into an honors classroom are given higher recognition. I saw this happen to several of my friends this year.
It also creates TOO MANY vals! In the past, the vals have been given the honor of sitting on the front row. However, during my graduation, several vals had to sit on the second row because it was impossible to make a row 49 chairs long… When you try to honor EVERYONE with a 4.0 it stops being special. </p>
<p>As for speeches, ours is given by the class president. I cannot stress enough what an awful idea this is. Our class presidency is chosen by the student body and is a plain popularity contest. The result is that the speaker is rarely if ever in the top of the class. (Usually, quite the contrary.) While we were lucky to have a great president this year who gave a very nice speech, the president my junior year literally stood at the podium and listed her best friends by name and thanked them for giving her an incredible high school experience. Yikes!! </p>
<p>As far as honors, scholarship winners are honored at our senior awards ceremony.
The evening of graduation…
NHS members wear a golden cord and are asked to stand as a group.
Students scoring at the highest level on any of the four sections of state standardized testing wear one cord per section and are asked to stand as a group.
NMS wear a banner around their necks (I can’t remember the real word for this…) and are called by name to stand. Commended and Achievement scholars receive the same recognition.
Students earning a 30+ on the ACT are asked to stand as a group.
Students earning a 4.0 (Vals) are seated by alphabetical order in the first (or first two) rows, walk first, and wear an uncomfortably heavy medal. (The “valedictorian” next to me, who had never taken an honors or AP class in his life, “forgot” his medal the evening of graduation…) </p>
<p>NHS President, Student Council President, and Fellowship of Christian Students President say the welcome, pledge, and prayer. </p>
<p>I like the idea of the top ten auditioning to speak. This ensures that the speaker will be a top student and that the speech will be good. It also ensures that a val or sal who doesn’t want to speak won’t feel as if he or she has to.</p>
<p>I find all the different variations in the way schools handle the ranking/no ranking/weighting/no weighting/val/no val/sal/no sal situation very interesting- I don’t envy university admissions having to deal with all of this variation AT ALL.</p>
<p>I can see the validity of many perspectives, but I also realize that all of the competition and fighting is between a handlful of overachievers - this stuff doesn’t affect 99.9% of the student body. </p>
<p>Our local HS is large and academically one of the top in our state. Class sizes have been averaging about 600 students the past few years. Most of the kids end up at state U’s (20% at our nationally ranked flagship, 40% at 2 “next best” state U’s, and on down). Only about 10% end up going OOS and at most 1 or 2 go to Ivies or top 25 U’s. About 25% of the class get some sort of scholarship - this is the same percentage of the class that earns a 3.5 GPA or above. This past year about 20 students got scholarships amounting to 1/2 rides or better. Everything seems to work out okay for the majority of students without all the grade competition for val/sal honor.</p>
<p>The HS does not weight, ranks all 4.0’s at the 99th %ile (and stopped ranking everyone else this past year). No val, no sal. Students audition to give the speeches - the faculty usually pick 2 kids who struggled through school but overcame some issue (the misguided kid with a good heart who was in trouble so much they were on a first name basis with the disciplinary principal, etc.) - their speeches are usually very funny and heart warming. A student government officer (not always the president) does the tassle ceremony. Faculty handles everything else.</p>
<p>Kids with 3.5 and over wear gold cords. Membership in NHS, Language Honor Societies, NMS get these mentioned in the program. The ceremony usually takes between 60 and 75 minutes - they run the kids through 2 at a time to speed up the process. </p>
<p>No one that I know of has had their life ruined as a result of not being honored as val/sal.</p>
<p>I like letting the students pick one student speaker and the faculty pick another student speaker. That is much better than letting a person speak simply because of their GPA - they may have nothing to say and may not say it very well.</p>
<p>My son’s high school recognizes the top 10 students on the stage at graduation.</p>
<p>I agree with the above post, that it is essential for a high school to provide weight for harder subjects in GPA. There are too many students who will take the easy route if there is not an incentive, and too many students who will feel a disincentive if they choose to be challenged with harder classes.</p>
<p>As my D approaches the end of 11th grade, we hear there are 27 kids tied for #1. That will change, of course, when year-end GPA is calculated. (My D must be a real slacker with her lowly #6. )</p>
<p>We had a Val tie in the class of 2010. I have no idea how they chose, but it wasn’t decided until graduation-eve. In the end there was only one val and one sal. </p>
<p>There are auditions for the graduation speech. For 2010, the SGA pres gave it. </p>
<p>At graduation, the following kids are seated on the stage:
Val
Sal
Class Pres
SGA Pres
NHS Pres, maybe. For the last 2 years, NHS pres was also the sal (2010) and val (2011). Since D is the next NHS pres we’re really curious to see if she’ll have a seat on stage. :o</p>
<p>Anyhoo, the kids on the stage share the responsibility of reading names as the graduates cross teh stage. No administrators or other adults read names.</p>
<p>At our school we don’t recognize val. and sal. They don’t even say who it would be if we did (unless the top students compare gpa’s…). But instead, we do [Mascots] of the Year. This usually consists of one boy and one girl, voted on by teachers from a list of top students chosen by one of the main counselors. Its not just top academic students, but students who are well rounded (smart, athletic, involved in the school) I think it’s a lot better than val. and sal.</p>
<p>No Val. and no Sal. and no ranking at D’s HS. However, graduating class profile is provided to colleges and published on school website…from which our family knew that if 3% of seniors had 4.0 uw and there were 33 kids in D’s class, that means that 3% represented 1 graduate. We also knew that D. had 4.0 uw. Since she took all alowed AP’s (very few were offered and they could take only 3 / year starting with junior year), then we have concluded that she was #1 in her class. Then during Graduation, she got 2 awards from Parents association that proved that we were correct. This was the only way to find out. Since kids in her school never discussed academic/grades…etc. absolutely nobody knew who is where in standing.</p>
<p>Student body president and student body vice president both give a speech at graduation. Senior class president & other officers have some type of responsibilities during both the baccalaureate and graduation (like leading the Pledge of Allegiance.) Sal and Val also give speeches. They don’t find out who exactly it will be until after final exams, usually when they arrive at graduation rehearsal. Administration notifies the current top 5 students at the end of the year to alert them that they may need to give a speech.</p>
<p>None of this is big news to anyone. They have a “Top Student” luncheon every Spring and invite the kids with the top 25 gpa’s from each grade. The top 20 students are noted in the graduation program and the top 10 students are honored at a dinner in May (also on the district website and in a special newspaper insert) along with any National Merit Finalists and their “most influential” teachers. IB participants and NMFs have special stoles; top 20, NHS, and the language and fine arts honor society members all have cords.</p>
<p>Don’t have them as far as I know. The 12 or so IB kids with unweighted 4.0s were recognized equally in the awards ceremony. Graduation speakers were chosen by audition.</p>
<p>At our school the Valedictorians are the top 2% of the class. I think they only count 7 semesters (since it is determined prior to the end of the 8th semester). They announce them at the Senior Awards. Also everyone who was above a 3.5 EVERY SEMESTER is designated in the program. There were some kids who had a weighted GPA over 4.0, who didn’t qualify for the above a 3.5 every semester. My son was one of the six valedictorians (and the only boy), and he had identical grades as a friend of his, except he took 4 APs junior year and 2 senior year and she took 3 junior year and 3 senior year, and since the second semester of senior year wasn’t counted, she just missed being a valedictorian. Also she had a lot of credits for drama, which because it wasn’t weighted, diluted her GPA. The speeches are given by whoever wants to try out. I think if you were a scholar athlete you got a medal, and then there was a cord for California Scholarship Federation and something for National Honor society but I forget what.</p>
<p>Also noted in the graduation handout: those kids who earned the honors diploma vs. the regular diploma (must complete the requirements for the regular diploma, four years of math and four years of science, and a minimum of fourteen (14) credits at Honors or AP level with a minimum 3.5 cumulative GPA.)</p>
<ol>
<li>They don’t want the “losers” to get their feelings hurt…</li>
<li>Around 10+ people get the same, maxed out GPA at the end of senior year.</li>
</ol>
<p>Desafinado, I mentioned that in my post. It is VERY normal in schools in my area. I live in the southern United States in what is commonly called the “Bible Belt.” I have never been to a high school graduation where a Christian prayer was not given. Supposedly students are given the opportunity to object to a prayer being given at graduation prior to the event, but so far it has never happened. (Probably because no one is brave enough to deal with the angry administrators/classmates/community.) The one time a question was raised several students started a campaign in which they sold “In Jesus Name” (and that is what they said, not “In Jesus’s Name” or even “In Jesus’ Name”…) t-shirts to raise awareness or something and the opposition eventually just gave up. Apparently it’s legal because A)Graduation exercises are voluntary, B)The prayer is student-led, not given by an administrator, and C)All students supposedly agree to it. I don’t personally have a problem with a graduation prayer as long as all students agree to it, but I do have a problem with the culture of intimidation here that prevents any student from disagreeing. Rather than taking an actual poll in my high school, it was assumed that all students would agree, so silence about the issue was taken to mean agreement rather than fearful disagreement. No poll was ever taken since everyone “agreed.” We do have a couple of devout Muslim students coming up in the next few years though, so it will be interesting to see if they have anything to say about the idea or if they will request that some sort of an Islamic prayer be given. </p>
<p>As most of you probably figured out, considering that there are required courses such as physical education that can only be taken on a regular (i.e., non-honors or AP) basis, it would be impossible for anyone to graduate with even 6.0.</p>
<p>However, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system uses an unusual formula to calculate weighted grade point average based on the following criteria:</p>
<p>Final grades of A and B in AP, AP Gifted, and IB courses earn 2 extra points
Final grades of C in AP, AP Gifted, and IB courses earn 1 extra point
Final grades of A, B, and C in Honors or Honors Gifted courses receive 1 extra point</p>
<p>The total amount of bonus points is divided by 15 and then it is added to student’s unweighted gpa.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>A student has an unweighted gpa of 3.9 and has earned 40 bonus points by receiving final grades of A and B in all his/her Honors, Honors Gifted, AP, and AP Gifted courses.</p>
)</p>