This is likely true, but this student isn’t looking for admission to the very top schools. She’s looking for a full ride merit scholarship. That’s a different contest, with different rules.
i feel for you - it does seem like they should have phased in the policy. She’s worked very hard to maintain that top ranking.
But look at the bright side; perhaps her senior year she wont need to take that zero-hour before school class again; and maybe she can take an art class or a class that interests her. She’s worked so hard up to this point; surely she wouldnt be docked anything by college admins by taking a class or two of interest . . .
(Sometimes i look through the course catalogs of our high school and wish i could take some of those classes. How fun would wood-working be!)
Your high school had a policy to rank students.
Your high school had a distinguished award for the top student.
To obtain this award a student had to arrange their high school courses in a specific way in order to maximize the chance of the award.
Your student chose this goal as a freshman in high school. She worked diligently and tirelessly at obtaining this award since she was a freshman. This was a long term goal and is not easily obtained even when the student does exceptionally well.
Your student chose this goal because some colleges gave out monetary awards for this award.
The school did away with the award.
I think your daughter has every right to go to up the chain of command and state her case that the award should be discontinued for the next freshman class.
I think a well thought out argument of facts with little emotion might help at least get the rank on her transcript. I would have her go all the way up to the school board.
Why? Because your kid chose a long term goal that others had set and worked her butt off for it. She will learn to stand up for herself and present an effective argument. Who knows if this will help her case. When presented as a long term achievable goal that was taken away near the end of the contest she should at least get people to understand her disappointment and anger. And maybe even help her out.
She didn’t set up the awards. Someone in charge did at your school and at some colleges.She agreed to play by the rules and tried to achieve it.
Then they did away with it.
She has much to gain. Little to lose.
My daughter’s HS did not rank. They did name the sal and val (graduation speakers ranked 1 and 2 - named after the first semester senior year) and they did put in their HS profile the highest GPA attained by that class (so you could tell the Val from that). They also put an asterisk next to the top ten GPAs on the graduation program (which you only found out at graduation when they handed you the program - class of over 500 students).
My daughter was accepted by a school that said they would give a significant scholarship for anybody in the top 1% of their graduating class. Although, they don’t rank, my daughter’s counselor was able to tell me she had missed this mark (was like 1.5% in her class). Had she made the cut, the school would have sent that documentation to the college so she could receive the scholarship.
My point is the school, although they don’t officially rank, can provide this information to a college so that the student can secure a scholarship.
The first thing I would do would be to contact the school guidance counselor to verify. Have you? Because our school does not report ranking on transcripts nor share with colleges or universities unless students formally request. IIRC, students also are not told ranking until senior year, if they ask because it’s needed for scholarships or college admittance.
My kids high school doesn’t officially rank but since we are in TX by state law the school is required to rank the top 10%. If a student is in the top 10% they can choose to have their rank included with their transcripts if they like.
I’m sorry your D is disappointed. Perhaps she can think of it as blazing the trail so kids after her don’t have to jump the hoops. Now she can change her goal to figuring out where what she can present (which is pretty darn great) will get her a full ride. While still taking an art class:)
And bc she will be largely influenced by your reaction, try to push this positive! Honestly, it is the best overall thing. Our school does not weight, does not rank. Your grades are %/100. No hiding or gaming bc the GC will tell a school if you take all easy As. And you know what? This may open her eyes to some schools that she might not have considered before while making her new plan!
Good luck:)
Just catching up- but did your dad have the 529s in your kids names? If so, could the wife change that? And we’re the 529s you had in very aggressive, risky investments? It’s surprising that all th 529 monies could have dwindled.
Agree with those who say there are LOTS of EXCELLENT schools that will be generous with merit money for a talented student. But please tell her to be careful not to say she took her classes just to chase the golden Val ring. Even if true, it might give the wrong impression.
While I completely understand your anger concerning the rule change in your daughter’s junior year, I am going to present the other side of the coin. My daughter is taking the hardest academic classes possible. She is one of about 20 freshman in Algebra II Honors. There are three freshman who are more advanced in math than her in her HS. That is 20 something freshman out of 740 who are in advanced math. After self-studying Japanese in 8th grade, my daughter couldn’t take Japanese III Honors as a freshman, not because she wasn’t capable, but because upperclassmen got first shot at the class and it was full. Therefore, she is taking Japanese II (which is not weighted) this year and self-studying Japanese. After exploring what takes place in Japanese III & IV at her school, she decided to dual-enroll in advanced Japanese at our directional university next year. Her electives this year aren’t weighted because she chose to take Speech & Debate and Drama. She could have easily taken Band and Orchestra Honors, which are both weighted, because she plays in our local youth symphony and the director of the programs told me that he would be thrilled to have her in his classes. Her first semester she spent more time on Speech & Debate than any of her other classes combined.
My daughter auditioned for upper level choir next year. Yes, auditioned for an unweighted class and will be taking it next year. In addition to choir, she will be taking AP World, Honors Math, English & Science and French III Honors (after self-studying French as well) and Japanese DE. The only APs available to sophomores are AP World & AP Geo. She is choosing the harder AP because she thinks it will be more interesting.
Now, would you like to guess my daughters class rank? It is 91st in a class of about 740 kids. Yes, with straight A’s her first semester, she is ranked 91st in her class. She isn’t even in the top 10%. Even if my daughter gets straight A’s in the most challenging academic classes throughout HS, her ability to graduate in the top 10% is doubtful. She is going to rely on the guidance counselor to explain her situation. Your guidance counselor should be able to explain your daughter’s situation as well.
I understand the race to Val as my nephew is currently in line to be Val in his highly competitive HS that is ranked amongst the top 50 high schools in the US. He also carefully planned his course selection to ensure that he would be ranked first if he continues to receive straight A’s in HS. I know that he and my sister would be very upset if the rules were changed at the end of his junior year.
Congratulations on your daughters achievements! I am sure that she has great things ahead of her.
BTW - There was four way tie for Val when my son graduated from HS in 2013. Two of the kids went to Yale, one to Rice and one to Colorado College. Their GPA’s were separated by .04 and the Principal of the school decided to make them Co-Vals based on this. Also in the top ten, one kid went to Middlebury one to Swathmore. My son, who was ranked 16th, without ever receiving a B in HS, also attends a top tier school.
From your D’s point of view, it hurts. Absolutely understandable. From the colleges’ point of view, there are 100,000 students every single year in the U.S. who are either 1, 2, or 3 in their high school graduating class. So this is not devastating.
Is she willing to look at schools like Denison, Earlham, Centre and Beloit where she very possibly would receive substantial merit aid? Or is her heart set on HYPS where her academic accomplishments place her in the middle of the pack? I have a hunch the biggest challenges are still ahead, and will have nothing to do with the school dropping a class ranking.
If a school has a Val award, and the school has a precise measurement of how to obtain it then you have every right to try to obtain it following the rules.
THEY (the school) set it up. They decided to give an award. They wrote the rules. She has every right to state that she was working toward the award they were offering.
There is no wrong impression to give here.
This was the award the kid chose to try and win out of all the awards the school has. She had the right to make that choice without being treated like it is wrong to try and obtain it.
“Oh, we have this award for top student AND it is wrong of you to strive to obtain it.” That makes no sense especially when it has financial as well as college award ramificatons.
Our school district did away with class rank when my kids were in grade school. They also did away with Valedictorian, etc. They did this in favor of Latin distinctions (summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude). They have never weighted GPA. However, they do actually rank the kids, they just don’t share that rank with anyone except our state flagship and the local newspaper. Our state flagship offers full tuition scholarships to the #1 ranked kid from each of the high schools in the state, and there is some academic recognition given in the local newspaper by class rank. So your school may do the same.
There is no gaming in our school district, because none of the grades are weighted. I do appreciate that, because our kids were able to take the classes that interested and challenged them, not just the ones that would get them a good class rank.
But I understand your frustration. It’s never fun to have the rules change on you mid-game.
Our kids school stopped ranking a few years ago. What they found was it was ranking was hurting high-achieving students. This is a very strong Catholic college-prep high school. Too many colleges were focusing on the top 10, when in reality, given the strength of the student body and the level of education, kids in the top 25 were often equivalent to the top 10 at other schools.
Once this was done, acceptance rates at our (highly desirable) state flagship increased.
We also had a problem with people pulling their kids out when they realized that their student might only be #15 in our school, but if they went to their zoned school that might have a very different mix of students and different levels of teaching, they could be in the top 5 there (but might not receive the same level of college preparation). Removing ranking stopped hurting those high achievers who weren’t at the tippy-top purely due to the high level of competition.
It’s sad that kids feel driven to take particular courses JUST to increase their class rank. There are plenty of scholarships out there for high-achieving students that do NOT require you be #1. I know that because my kids were awarded many of them. None of the colleges had a problem with our HS not providing rank - they just wanted to know how competitive the school was and in what decile the students fell. And my kids did take pottery and photography, as I believe it is important to have variety in education and interests, and these classes gave them a much-needed break from more intensely academic courses, even though these were unweighted classes. And in fact, many of their interviews asked them about their more creative courses and appreciated that they weren’t slaves to textbooks and grades. Honors programs are often concerned with well-rounded students.
Even without ranking, Val and Sal are still awarded at our school and make speeches at graduation. And actually we all know who the top 10 are, at least in Junior year, as they are asked to marshal at graduation. But my experience has been that the Val and Sal did not receive any more substantial merit awards than my kids, who were in the top 10, received. And in fact, because we focused on schools known for good merit awards rather than prestige, my kids had far more potential scholarship $$ than many of the higher achievers.
I totally agree with @sax and don’t blame you for being upset.
Just to be clear the OP isn’t worried about the Val award, it is the #1 rank she is concerned with.
OP - I think your D sounds like a very accomplished student and will have plenty of merit scholarships to choose from regardless of whether your HS ranks or not. Many of the previous posters have given some good feedback and advice. Frame this as a positive to your D and have her take a class she’ll enjoy her senior year.
Our HS did not eliminate ranking mid way through a student’s HS experience. Students who started off in 9th grade being ranked were ranked all 4 years. Incoming freshmen are not ranked. This resulted in grades 9 and 10 not ranked, and grades 11 and 12 having a rank. It is gradually being phased out. I do not blame you for being angry about the way it was done, yet at the same time I do believe your daughter will qualify for a lot of merit aid if you do your research wisely.
I would applaud the policy. Too much course planning and gaming is counter-productive. A top student should not be dinged in rank for taking an extra (6th or 7th?) course of personal interest (orchestra?), but only to find out it does not qualify for a GPA boost, and brings down the weighted GPA relative to someone who “only” took 5 honors/AP courses, all of which earned a the GPA boost.
I’m so glad my old high school got rid of class rank in the mid 1970’s and never looked back. They did it quite suddenly. One year was ranked. The following year was unranked. I’d like to think my brother played a role. He was probably the recognized top student, straight A’s, and so on. At that time, there was no dual enrollment but individual students could set up their schedule to leave campus for various reasons. He outgrew the high school math curriculum so he took classes at the local Ivy, got A’s. His rank fell out of the top 10. Why? Because those classes were unweighted (they may have even been entered on the transcript as merely Pass) and his two out of three or four remaining high school classes were unweighted (PE, Orchestra). He would have done better rank-wise to stay and take advanced classes (for which he had no interest) than to go higher and stretch himself. Students even back then played the game for class rank and it made a miserable competitive school environment. That didn’t clear up immediately but the lack of class rank took away one measure (weapon?). Currently, that same high school, if necessary, can and will compute and send the class rank to a college, if that college sends a written request for a particular student. Check with your high school GC and administration if such a thing can be done. Hopefully, they will go that extra distance for your daughter - argue the school will look good (a student getting a significant scholarship); the administration will look good (they care about every student); and your daughter, of course, benefits. Win-win-win.
Regardless, your daughter will have many options next year.
For pre-med or pre-law students, the GPA gamesmanship continues on through college.
Are you a California resident (since you are looking at CSULB)?
If so, do the net price calculators for UCs and CSUs indicate that they are affordable to you?
If not, here are some scholarship lists to investigate (but verify, since some schools may have changed them):
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/