<p>this is all ridiculous, what exactly is the point of this award? Does it help you do anything?</p>
<p>It’s competitive in the sense that a fair number tend to have a chance and one bad grade could screw you over. But nobody goes out of their way to be at the top.</p>
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<p>Wow, I’ve never even heard of a high school having the option of pass/fail. Do you go to some sort of special high school or something?</p>
<p>Ugh. It’s ridiculous. Our school has a small class (44), but the top 8 (which I am part of) are all really close; somehow everyone things I am going to be val…so they have like their parents try and figure out all my scores (ACT/SAT Scores are used as a back up in case of ties) and classes I plan on taking. I’m pretty uncompetitive (my only competition is myself) and so it’s just a little high school…and annoying.</p>
<p>In my school, me and this girl were always meant to be either Val/Sal. Were best of friends but im kind of competitive and try to always work harder than her, and its been back and forth for the past 3 years. she was number 1 one year, then the next I’m number 1 and so on. But recently number 3,4 and 5 in class rank all of the sudden wants to take the Sal spot from one of us. So this year competition was heated and the class rank shift in so many ways. I’m number 1 and have 4 people fighting for number 2 spot. One by one they come to me and plot schemes, to ruin the other chances for the spot. I don’t care whose number 2 as long as I’m number 1. LOL</p>
<p>I always felt that the Val is the one who is the top student, who can also be a role model to everyone else. The Val position is a distinction and in my school is the one to get the cool trophy on graduation. The Sal gets a smaller version of the trophy. My little story just goes to show that competition can change people and make them plot against each other for the worst.</p>
<p>Not much competitions because it’s the teachers vote. The top 10-15 students are all in the running, the teachers decide who is val and who’s sal.</p>
<p>Well, there are only 170 in my class, and about 10 think that the position of valedictorian is all theirs. 1-2 of these people will very likely not even fall in the top 10%. My school is full of extremely competitive and extremely delusional people. Sigh.</p>
<p>back in middle school, we had 20 people in our class (which was grades 7-12)</p>
<p>the one senior in our school was named the valedictorian</p>
<p>his graduation ceremony was pretty epic. they brought lots of people to the stage to speak about him and how awesome he was. it lasted a whole hour.</p>
<p>he went to a crappy state school but he graduated at 15, so i guess that’s something.</p>
<p>in my school, the competition is pretty fierce. i was number 1 for a while but dropped down to 2. its pretty close between number 1 and me, but we’re not bitter enemies or anything like that. im not really competitive, im just happy to be in the top ten. all the top students are all friendly and not really competitive or anything. for example, when the number 1 passed me, i congratulated him. and we all wished each other luck and compared schedules and stuff. he told me which classes he thought were hard, etc. we’re all pretty laid back.</p>
<p>really depends upon your school and what kind of students it has. Its cut throat in my school. last year the val had 4.8 W and sal had 4.78 W. Sal got into brown :S…</p>
<p>Yeah, mine is competitive in the top 8 people or so…but it is not nearly as bad as some of the horror stories posted here</p>
<p>My class will be competitive because we have 5/6 really serious people, yet it’s highly possible senior year for my class to have less than 40 people. Very easy to slip out of top 10. W have serious students, but this girl & I are gunning for it! Luckily, one person may decide to slack due to the fact that they would like to possibly persue culinary interests post-graduation.</p>
<p>My school does not have a competitive-cutthroat atmpsophere, and like 90%+ of everybody is really nice. Definitely other people have it worse than me, but we have a tight (albeit friendly lol) race.</p>
<p>our top 15 people are madd crazy about being successful and are good at doing it. our top 30 (which I lay somewhere near the periphery of, I would assume) students are also madd crazy about being successful but we’re not nearly as good at the top 15. there are roughly 90 people in our graduating class, so it’s rather competitive =/</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>If you guys want a horror story, look up Blair Hornstine.</p>
<p>At my school, it’s really competitive within the top 2-3 people, then it drops off drastically.</p>
<p>Its not super competitive
As long as you’re in the twenty, its cool…</p>
<p>getting in there though, is fierce</p>
<p>The vast majority don’t care, and even at the top it’s not as big as at some other schools. I’m number 5 and I don’t really think it’s that important.</p>
<p>Eh, not much competition at my school. Only 3 people left in the running for the top 2 spots: Me, this one asian girl, and this black guy. The black guy made a C in AP World History (class is on a 5 point scale, so thats a 3 averaged in) but I keep taking newspaper after receiving my writing elective credits, so that’s a bunch of extra 4s bringing down my 4.7… </p>
<p>As for the asian girl, I have my money on her for being val, or sal at the least. She’s not that smart, just studious, and I’m sure she’ll eventually take a class that tests her sheer brainpower too much (AP history almost did that, and I think AP Lit may be the one this year… HORRID writer…). And that guy is lazy and has a habit of forgetting assignments. He’ll do that in one of his college classes (We take College classes too because we’re attached to HCC) before long and he won’t have the hang holding he’s used to, so he’ll probably get more B and C’s.</p>
<p>So basically in a graduating class of around 100, we have 3 in the running for Val and Sal (each of us hovering around 4.65ish) and the rest of the top ten is about 4.3.</p>
<p>^ I’d like to hear what they would say about you.</p>
<p>@Smilemyonly</p>
<p>Asian Girl: “Michael’s an ***hole and I’m smarter than him.”</p>
<p>Black guy wouldn’t say anything because he has no idea I make straight A’s…</p>
<p>Yea, we’re not supposed to know our ranks, but one of our teachers let it slip that that guy was ranked second, so when he got that C in her class he was really ****ed. He wants to be Val but not enough to do homework or studying at home (lol) and he’s not secretive about that and how lazy he is. He’s pretty proud that he can make all A’s just by glancing at his notes before class.</p>
<p>The asian girl is very competitive, and tried to sabotage me in History… Yea. My conscience is pretty clear :P</p>