<p>Most Improved is not an unusual category. Especially in sports. My son got the award his freshman year. So did a close friend of mine who played a D1 sport. It is considered an honor.</p>
<p>At my son’s school, only merit awards were listed.</p>
<p>I’ve said it in years past, but I’m more mellow about the whole situation. For some kids and parents it’s is going to be their only moment in the “sun”. Our school sounds similar to many, parents with kids receiving the “surprise” scholarships get a letter with a flourscent sticker that says mandatory, call if you can’t make it. In general one of the top scholars rarely get’s much recognition and other is up and down all night. The school foundation scholarships get disbursed amount many and the athletes get their recognition. It’s a nice evening and I’ve just gotten quite mellow about the whole thing. We’re heading to ours with son #2 next week, witih a letter with the flourescent sticker. Since not all families are attend it’s a nice evening with very appreciative (for the most part) parents.</p>
<p>What is it about awards? At the senior center where I work, we awarded senior superlatives when we did a graduation-themed party last year. 50 people attended, and we scrambled for award titles so that everyone would get an appropriate one. We did Class Athlete, Class Clown, Most Punctual, etc. They were presented with short, humorous speeches; for sure none were tied to scholarship money(!) or were an actual prestigious award.</p>
<p>But! After the party was over, one woman approached the staff and confided that she was hurt because someone else had received the Wittiest designation, and shed always been told by everyone she knows how witty she is, while the other woman is really so soft-spoken and retiring that no one ever hears anything she says, so how can she possibly be the wittiest?</p>
<p>My co-workers and I practically had to pinch each other to keep from laughing out loud. I guess its better to learn how to put awards in perspective when youre 17 than when youre 70. Maybe you get the piece of paper saying youre the outstanding this/that/the other and maybe you even are but the piece of paper doesnt make it so.</p>
<p>I’ll never forget my hs awards ceremony although it was more than 35 yrs ago. I didn’t care about awards for awards sake or even getting them publicly, but I wanted 4 academic awards. Only one other student in my town had ever done that, and I wanted to equal it. Our academic awards were supposed to be given on highest GPA in the class. Of course, in subjects like English or History this can be subjective, too. I knew I would get the awards for French and physics because everyone in the class knew I had the highest GPA. I was also sure I would get the award in my math class for the same reason. I hoped for English, but that was the one I really wasn’t sure about. Turns out the English was announced first and I received it, got the other two and math was last. I was almost out of my seat when they announced the name of another student, a male basketball player. I was crestfallen and furious. I even got up the nerve to ask the math teacher why I didn’t get the award when I had earned it. His response, “You were getting three awards, so we decided to give it to the second place student.” I can still feel the fury today. Had it been the English award that was given to someone else, that was a legitimately iffy call and I would have been disappointed but not outraged, but when they didn’t give me the award I had earned, I was livid. </p>
<p>Didn’t mean to highjack the thread, but I got that off my chest. If there are awards, there should be standards that are public knowledge for how they are awarded. Many times band awards are for the director’s favorite, and everyone knows it. Sometimes they’re for the kid who has the biggest collection of music awards or who is clearly superior musically. Don’t think the kids don’t know which awards are legit awards and count for something and which are for popularity, teacher’s pet, or some other less noble reason.</p>
<p>Another rant: At my son’s high school, there was a strict dress code for the senior award ceremony. My son got a notice that he was getting an award, so I had to fork over money for him to buy a dress-up outfit that he didn’t otherwise need. It turned out that the “award” was a certificate for being NMS commended – something he had known about for 9 months. To hear this meaningless piece of “news,” we spent more than $150 on a dress shirt, tie, dress pants, and dress shoes – none of which he ever wore again. By the time he needed such clothes for interviews three years later, he had gained weight and wore a different size.</p>
<p>I haven’t been to the senior awards program yet. But the one for the other three grades consisted of awards for NHS, French, Spanish, Latin, and then the university alumni book awards. No mention of science, math, English, science fair winners, etc. I thought it was very odd.</p>
<p>Our awards ceremony dress code said “No blue jeans”, guess what my son wore? Black jeans. He wore a dress shirt and a tie and looked nice though!</p>
<p>We do sports awards at a ceremony just for them and we don’t announce anything but local scholarships - the one given out by the Chamber of Commerce and stuff like that. We actually have two award ceremonies - one for the lesser awards (which include junior book awards and the ACM medal and certificates for the Science Olympiad team) and then another one which has only seniors (except for some reason the RPI medal). You only come to the assemblies if you are winning an award. How they departmental awards are chosen is a complete mystery.</p>
<p>“So there were always kids getting huge applause and “Wow!!” comments for having gotten a big financial aid award. I’m happy for the kids, but this was need-based aid. Weren’t we in effect celebrating how low their parents’ income was?”</p>
<p>Maybe. Many top schools award mainly need-based aid and accept a minority of applicants. The applicants they accept likely have other scholarship offers as well. </p>
<p>Students from families with AGI’s between $50,000 and $70,000 are now offered great scholarship/grant packages from top notch schools. In my neck of the woods we don’t consider these familes to be low-income. Many of these parents lost high-paying jobs when several factories closed or moved away. Perhaps we are celebrating because their kids will have a chance to go off and be somebody?</p>
<p>Our HS awards ceremony has far too many athletic awards, and too few awards in two of the four major subjects. But it is always a great evening if your parent happens to work in the school system.</p>
<p>At our local public high school if you don’t attend senior awards, you don’t walk with your classmates at graduation. Guess too many kids were getting sick of sitting thorough hearing the same ten kids’ names called over and over.</p>
<p>Ah… the proverbial Sr. awards night! Chuckle.</p>
<p>At our kid’s school they have a separate awards night and scholarship night. The awards night recognizes excellence in academic areas. Scholarship night announces scholarships, both local and outside, that students received. </p>
<p>The school doesn’t weight classes so you could have someone receiving an award for being in the top 5% of the class and it is basically meaningless- some kids take the most rigorous course-load and then others don’t.</p>
<p>The kids know who’s the “real” deal and who isn’t. The awards/local scholarships are meaningful/meaningless depending on who receives them. Most local awards have nothing to do with academic merit- think, here, of the guy who spent his life in junior league bowling or … fill in the blank. One year a student received numerous awards and outside scholarships - had done tons of “mission” work in Africa because Dad is a minister- surprise!- who received the accolades?</p>
<p>Word has it that this year the girl who swept the awards … not going to go there!</p>
<p>Just got back from our school’s Senior awards night…close to 3 hours but I don’t think they could have eliminated any of the awards. No athletic, but lots of scholarship awards, many in memory of students/faculty who have passed away. Departmental awards/medallions, and the presenters stressed that there was a formula they followed to see who had the most points so it wasn’t a popularity contest. Scholastic Art awards, Yearbook & Newspaper awards (ours have very high standards & win national awards), Math competition & Science Olympiad awards (our teams do very well at state.) Summa cum laude awards for Honor Roll 15 quarters out of 16, and recognition of NMFs.</p>
<p>The underclass awards is a separate night.</p>
<p>This is when I stopped going to awards programs. At S1’s Senior award thing the school made a big deal out of the six kids who had accumulated over 600 hours of volunteer service in their four years, much of it working with their church youth groups, or scout troops or whatever. Each of the kids was given a silver tassel and sash that they would wear to graduation. Very nice. BUT…</p>
<p>There is a boy in this class who has been in a wheelchair for his whole life, and needs constant care for his hygiene needs among other things. After the volunteer presentation, his mother got up and told the story of another boy in the class who on their first day freshman year volunteered to push the kid across the grass so he could participate in the freshman flag raising ceremony. They became good friends and this kid spend four years doing everything he could for the wheelchair bound kid, from helping in the bathroom to schlepping homework to and from the hospital for six weeks when the kid had major surgery, to making sure that the kid had every experience a high school kid should have (pushed his chair so the kid could play flute in marching band, took him out “partying” after prom, etc., etc,). By their senior year the school was able to dispense with the classroom aid most of the time because this kid was doing it all for his friend. She then presented the kid with a nice scholarship from a local church. At the end of the presentation she said " Although the school does not recognize this as volunteer community service and will not give you the silver sash, we his parents want you to know that in our hearts you will always wear a golden sash." there was stunned silence. </p>
<p>The principal’s defense was that there was no supervisor who could sign off on his “volunteer hours” , so they didn’t count. What a great message-- only volunteer to help where you can make sure to get credit for it. UGH></p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>MDmom, that’s outrageous.</p>
<p>Here’s my beef. The awards that are sponsored by outside parties and are awarded to family members or close friends! The Angus C. Brown award goes to Billy Brown! Wow! So these people raise money all year for their scholarship and basically help to fund their own offspring’s education regardless of whether they are the most qualified candidate. They may as well stand at the dump with a collection can that says “Send Billy to College under the guise of a scholarship fund for a deserving candidate”. And the families sit in the audience looking all shocked and surprised that Billy is being recognized.</p>
<p>The nepotism is glaring and embarrassing to witness.</p>
<p>I think it would be appropriate if all of the scholarships were submitted to an independent and objective group of decision makers. I also think that the academic awards should be given to the most deserving student even if they are getting more than one. However, I don’t think that any student should receive more than one award from outside sources. There are many deserving kids and many of them go through their entire school career without any acknowledgement whatsoever.</p>
<p>As a disclaimer, I should say that my kids are great and good at many things but they would not necessarily be the ones getting those top awards. My concerns are not really for them but for those kids that are doing really well and working really hard and have to sit there while the same kid walks back and forth to the podium racking up the awards and money.</p>
<p>The girl who lives next door slept through the ceremony today. Unfortunately, it has not been a great year for this young lady, so no one is too angry about it.</p>
<p>A few years, maybe 6-7 years ago, we were invited to a Math & Science awards night where my son was getting an award. I was astonished by the proportion of girls vs guys. The following day, I counted girls vs guys and discovered it was 70:30 ratio. Three years later, at graduation, the valedictory award was split by four students, all girls. This year, we were invited again. This time, the ratio had flipped. There were about 30 girls for 70 guys. Anybody got any reasons for this?</p>
<p>I can’t skip my Awards Ceremony. It’s during school. Nobody can skip it.</p>
<p>Except parents who get to…because most are busy working and don’t get to their kid get awards. </p>
<p>Scholarships are just called out like roll.</p>
<p>Okay, Just had to weigh in. My son is Scholar of Scholars (highest GPA in the school.) He is three years ahead in math, has scored OVER 100% in many of his math classes, and never received a math achievement award. In fact, he was the first Scholar of Scholars not to receive an achievement award his senior year. Obviously to be Scholar of Scholars, one has to achieve… So rather than get upset about it, my son and I laugh. Like I told him Scholar of Scholars is the ULTIMATE achievement award and I am sure most, if not all, would trade an achievement award to be Scholar of Scholars. :-)</p>
<p>Our scholarships at senior awards night are all surprise announcements. Some from the Women’s clubs & so forth, but many many in memory of faculty or students who have passed away. There are a lot of them but all meaningful.</p>
<p>Scholarships from colleges are just printed in the graduation booklet. I guess it gives people something to read during the interminable march across the stage.</p>
<p>limabeans–you’d have to track it for a period of time to see if the girl/boy ratio stays the same or changes randomly from year to year. I notice the math awards tend to go to boys but girls get a lot of the science ones, esp. if they involve complete projects & presentations as opposed to a one-time test.</p>
<p>And valedictorians are more often girls because they do what the teachers ask & get the better grades (not necessarily “smarter”). ;)</p>
<p>These are some depressing stories. </p>
<p>Our awards night is for all grades (language exam awards) and lasts a whopping 30 minutes. There is another ceremony wth awards that is for seniors only, but it’s a really fun event that includes music and skits and still only lasts about two hours.</p>