<p>What is a valedictorian? How are they picked? I read in the local paper that some schools had like 5. Is this normal? Also, what is a salutorian? My school doesn't rank and I really don't think my school has valedictorians or salutorains.</p>
<p>Val is the top GPA, so there must have been a tie.
Sal is the second highest GPA in the class.</p>
<p>But I don’t get it…At my school at least, there are tons of kids with 4.0 GPAs. Surely there are more than 1, 2 or even 20 kids with a 4.0???</p>
<p>There is a weighted and unweighted GPA.</p>
<p>Unweighted GPA only accounts for the grade you receive while weighted accounts for the difficulty ie Standard, Honors, GT, AP, etc… every school is different.</p>
<p>20 people may have a 4.0 unweighted GPA but the Valedictorian might have taken more AP classes and thus, have a higher weighted GPA, etc… </p>
<p>Salutatorian, i believe, is usually the student with the second highest weighted GPA.</p>
<p>Technically, the val is the student who gives a speech at graduation; typically, he or she is chosen on the basis of grades.</p>
<p>It is possible your school has val and sal but doesn’t make a huge deal about it. My children’s school doesn’t announce val and sal until about a week before graduation, when the underclassmen are all in finals. This year, a college rep who was presenting an award to a senior at the academic awards ceremony two weeks before graduation let the cat out of the bag.</p>
<p>There are almost as many ways of determining vals and sals as there are high schools. In some schools, every student with a 4.0 GPA is named a valedictorian. Thankfully, time usually prevents all of these students from giving a speech, though I’ve heard of some schools where they do. One formal definition is the student with the highest GPA, however that’s figured, who gives the valediction, or farewell speech, at graduation. The salutatorian usually has the second-highest GPA, and supposedly gives the salutation. At our high school, the val (which we call something else) speaks somewhere in the middle of the ceremony.</p>
<p>OP, even if your school doesn’t rank or announce the student with the highest GPA, the records office/guidance center will know which student has the highest GPA.</p>
<p>“Technically, the val is the student who gives a speech at graduation.”</p>
<p>Technically, that is how your school does it. It is not universal, nor is anything else about ranking and GPA.</p>
<p>Not all schools have tons of 4.0 students, sounds like your school has a bad case of grade inflation,</p>
<p>^true that</p>
<p>no. Not really grade inflation. We are the 6th best school in the state.</p>
<p>Weighted GPA is the key–and it is true that by taking all AP and honors courses, a student can earn much higher than 4.0. This is the reason why there is so much controversy about this system. Every year, there are gifted students that have to choose between taking courses such as Band, Orchestra, Art–which do not receive extra consideration–and taking only courses that will help them achieve higher GPA’s. It is a shame, because many of them truly love music and art–or physical education, sewing, cooking, photography. etc–and this system discourages them from broadening their education.</p>