<p>I’m the valedictorian for my senior class, and I know that I’m not the smartest one. </p>
<p>I don’t see intelligence as just high grades and test scores. For example, one student at my school is a BRILLIANT artist: he began Art I and learned beginner’s techniques with me, but he already started to draw professionally within a few months. It’s amazing how he decides to approach a particular art assignment: all of his ideas are unique and are executed with precision and excellent techniques. </p>
<p>I also know many others who are smarter than me in different areas. Valedictorian is a label for the person with the highest GPA, but it does not precisely measure intelligence.</p>
<p>We don’t rank but one student from my HS has always been considered the best since about soph year. He’s a top ranked athlete in one sport, a decent athlete in another sport, on a board about as selective as key club international board (referring to the 11 trustees); won’t go into more details for privacy reasons, has the 2nd highest # of AP test completed and the person that beat him by 1 test only got 4s. He’s gotten mainly 5s (with 2 4s). Super high ACT/SAT II scores, 2nd highest GPA (he took art for grad. requirements), pretty much the hardest course of any1 at my school.</p>
<p>Edit: I’m being vague on purpose. He has many more impressive stats/ECs but some of them are revealing.</p>
<p>Well, this is hard to say in my case because there are about 30 vals. and sals. altogether in our grade. Our school has this really weird system but I can’t complain because I am a sal.
However, our school doesn’t actually rank but everyone knows who the top three are. The number on kid is absolutely brilliant. He doesn’t study at all and he has perfect grades. He has had a 5.0 GPA for the past three semesters. He is just naturally intelligent and he thinks really quickly on his feet. His best friend, who is number two and one of my good friends, is also really smart. He is really smart but he also has the traditional Asian upbringing. (the first kid is half black, half white). He has taken like 8 AP tests (several of them self-studied) and received only 5’s. He is a really good logical thinker. The number three is kind of just one of those people who does nothing but study. She has really no social life. However, unlike the other two she is an amazing artist in all respects (dance, music, theatre, and painting/drawing).
The hard thing is that there are so many kids at our school and in our grade who are brilliant in every respect. There are kids not even in the top 100 who are amazing at what they do. We have so many kids who are going to top schools for art, theatre, architecture, music, cooking etc. Our class broke the school record for most people going to Ivies/top 20 schools just with Early Decision.</p>
<p>@strive8 - WOW your school sounds awesome! I think we had one girl go to MIT two years ago but that’s all on the ivy front where I’m at. Otherwise…'09 had no ivies and maybe four or five at a top public. This year we have at least 2 applicants to HYP and I <em>KNOW</em> one of them will get turned down (she’s taken…1 AP? Maybe 2) unless she’s curing cancer on the side and we all don’t know. Maybe that other girl could get in, though it’s a super reach for her too (good SAT scores, ECs are lacking and her schedule is so-so…only about 5-6 APs in all).
Otherwise, we have 9 into a top public which is a good thing! But dang. Your school takes the cake! hah.</p>
<p>Nope, not in any way, and i’m not sure if it’s just in my school but things are pretty spread out evenly. For example, the Valedictorian my have the highest gpa, but someone ranked 17 might have the highest SAT scores; then maybe the Salatutorian having the highest SAT II scores and No. 5 having all 5’s on the AP’s.</p>
<p>I definitely won’t consider the Valedictorian to be the smartest individual in my class but he’s a pretty hard worker and there is no doubting that he deserves it.</p>
<p>I think I know who the val is in my class so far, but I’m not 100% sure. But if it’s who I think it is, I’ll say she’s pretty smart. She’s taking 4 AP’s, which is unheard of at my school and getting straight-A’s in addition to be a three-season athlete. She wants to go to Notre Dame, but she’s scared she won’t get in because of their community service requirement. </p>
<p>Our sal is also pretty smart as well. She’s not in a study hall, which is why she’s not the val. In my grade, getting to be number one is a numbers game. </p>
<p>There’s a few kids that are probably smarter but don’t challenge themselves. Therefore, those people aren’t number one. And I’m number 12.</p>
<p>MIT is not, has never been, and in all probability will never be an Ivy League school. There are eight schools in the Ivy League: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and Cornell. The term “Ivy League,” by denotation, has nothing to do with quality of academics of prestige; it is an athletic league to which only the eight aforementioned schools belong.</p>
<p>Indeed. It’s the closest we had to an ivy admit that we’ve had, though. Nice way to grind my already-mediocre school down a notch :rolleyes:<br>
Rankings…meh. There have been some successful kids come out of my highschool, nonetheless.</p>
<p>Nope, definitely not. He just choose the right easy APs and worked his butt off. He’s one of those, Oh I don’t study at all, but secretly stays up until 4 in the morning studying for tests. Honestly how is GPA supposed to correlate to how intelligent someone is?</p>
<p>absolutely not. I sit next to her in APUSH, and the valedictiorian in my school hyperventilates every day. She also does absolutley nothing other than school work. Given that being “well-rounded” is hopefully gonna get me into college, I’m really hoping that’s more important but I think she has more dedication than true intelligence.</p>
<p>We don’t officially rank but this year’s “val” is a brilliant girl; got into Yale early. With that said, she is nowhere near the most intelligent IMO because our school is filled with even more brilliant kids. There’s this one kid who I don’t think is even in the top decile but has a 2400 and won a major national event. He’s one of those guys that doesn’t try in the humanities but cares about math and science (which is strange because his major EC pertains to the humanities). </p>
<p>On a side note, people here are generally rather harsh with their judgments about people from SAT scores. If you have a 4.0 and a 2200 you’re considered a hard-working ditz. Quite the environment…</p>
<p>Valedictorians, form what I’ve seen, are annoyingly “perfect”, but not intelligent. </p>
<p>In my school, the position comes with a bunch of stereotypes. For the past couple years, all the vals have been rich, have had above 2300 SATs, have gathered 57836597million community service hours, and have been twats, all while not being particularly sharp. </p>
<p>It really depends on your school/location/grading system/school philosophy though.</p>
<p>Mine is an idiot, to be frank. She got a 1760 on the SAT, spends at the least 5 hours on homework a night [I’m in the same classes and I never do it…teachers just care that you know the material], and brags about how smart she is…yeah, one of those preppy, stuck up people with a big group of friends whom she talks crap about constantly.
She fails tests then does extra credit to get her grade up.<br>
Why is she the Val? She works her butt off. I did marching band 4 years (A=4.0) which brought my GPA significantly down. I don’t care though, it was fun.</p>
<p>She bugs the crap out of me too, if you can’t tell. We will be at the same college, most likely. Good thing there are 19,998 other people for me to be friends with.</p>
<p>They don’t weight the GPA for our valedictorians and salutatorian in my daughter’s h.s. So, they can basically take all non-AP classes and if they have a 4.0, they automatically are in. It’s ridiculous. Of course, the majority of them *do *take a rigorous course load, but there could still be less AP classes in their schedule than, say a student who just missed being a val with one B in AP Chem, for instance. They tried to change that this year to a weighted GPA which would mean only ONE valedictorian. But, parents whose kids had straight As the past 3+ years (without AP classes) got upset. So, now they’re back to the old way and multiple valedictorians. It doesn’t affect my daughter either way since she has had one semester B in APUSH. But, I know that colleges will look more favorably at *her *course load over someone who never got a B, but also who didn’t take any or very few AP classes. And, since our school now weights the GPA on the transcript (aside from choosing the val and sal) my daughter is in the top 5% of her class. Even some of the vals can’t say that with their unweighted classes. I know of *one *guy who really deserves to be THE valedictorian out of the bunch. VERY intelligent and will be going to Stanford. Accepted EA and deservedly so. I see him doing great things in the future.</p>
<p>So, to answer your question: No, the valedictorians are NOT necessarily the most intelligent in the senior class.</p>
<p>Last year we had four valedictorians at my school.</p>
<ol>
<li>Smartest kid I’ve ever met. Got a 35 on his ACT the first time he took it (besides the 30 in eighth grade). Got accepted to a couple ivies, but decided to take the full ride at a state school for obvious financial reasons.<br></li>
<li>Idiot. She sat next to me in APUSH, (she was a senior, I was a sophomore) and was an idiot! She cheated on tests and talked about how she was getting drunk that weekend. She took the ACT like 9 times and got a 32 (I think). However, northwestern made a large mistake and accepted her EA for biomedical engineering.</li>
<li>Very very smart kid. He got a 33 on his ACT and is going premed at a tough private school. He also was a captain in two sports and pres. of NHS. He was a great kid.</li>
<li>He was by far the least intelligent of the Vals. He was one of “those” kids who worked their butts off and got 93’s. He took the ACT five times and capped out at a 27. Yes a 27!! He actually got denied to a small christian school that accepts like 65 percent of applicants.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>So there were a range of kids. In my class there will be like five most likely, including myself. I like to say I am a well rounded student. 30 on my ACT, state qualifier in golf, community service, school committees, friends with different cliques, etc. I think the school should base Val and Sal off more than GPA.</p>
Maybe that other girl could get in, though it’s a super reach for her too (good SAT scores, ECs are lacking and her schedule is so-so…only about 5-6 APs in all).
but I think she has more dedication than true intelligence.</p>