What are your thoughts on our high school’s policy on Valdictorian. Anyone who has an unweighted 4.0 (no matter what rigor of classes they take) are awarded co-valdictorian. Some years we have dozens of students with 4.0’s, some that take mostly AP/honors classes and others that took regular classes. Btw - the farewell address to the senior class is given by the senior class president (there are only one of those).
Thoughts?
I’m old school and think that there should be one valedictorian and one salutatorian. I think it dilutes the achievement to have more than one. I also think the valedictorian should be giving the graduation speech.
I get that there could be 0.1 difference between #1 and #10 and that’s why schools did away with it but there is still a #1.
At my dd’s high school they had an academic hall of honor for any student with the 4.0 GPA but also with a 98th percentile + on standardized tests. There were 26 students who met that criteria in my daughter’s graduating class. It would have been ridiculous to have 26 valedictorians. Thankfully we had one, and he gave a great speech at graduation.
I think this is why being valedictorian doesn’t mean much anymore.
Our high school has nearly 1,200 kids in the senior class. Having only 1 val/sal would really be unfair. Our school awards valedictorian to the top 1% using the weighted GPA and salutatorian to the top 2%. These are all 4.0 students if you look at their unweighted GPA.
Being named a valedictorian is a game of AP classes. It’s not unusual for some of the salutatorians to have higher ACT/SAT/PSAT scores, but if they were varsity athletes or in marching band, they were often pushed out of the valedictorian spot. I’m fine with the policy. Life is about your choices.
@socaldad2002
I like it. As a “so cal mom” I appreciate that my D’s School doesn’t select a valedictorian. They also don’t rank students other than by decile. The reason I like it is because most schools choose a valedictorian strictly by GPA. A student can choose to take 5 APs/Honors and a mandatory religion and foreign language class each year. Or they can do what my daughter did: 5 APs/Honors, mandatory religion and foreign language class PLUS an additional non weighted class or two each year (such as yearbook, computer drafting, graphic design, social justice, advanced art etc). So my daughter’s GPA, although she received all As in all 9 classes, will be lower than a student who chooses to only take 7. Just my 2 cents.
Our HS had over 30 valedictorians (anyone over 4.1W GPA) out of a class of ~400. The cutoff has been the same for quite a few years and the number of qualifiers has steadily increased. I suspect they will move the cutoff up to 4.2 soon but that will still be ~20 students.
A weighted cutoff seems better than unweighted, but there is still quite a range of ability/achievement in the top 20 kids let alone 30+. I agree it wasn’t seen as a big deal, other prizes for the top student in each subject were a bigger honor.
“Our high school has nearly 1,200 kids in the senior class. Having only 1 val/sal would really be unfair”
Or an incredible achievement for that 1 Val/Sal!
My D20’s senior classes are around 450 and having dozens of Vals seems to really diminish the honor, especially if given to students who take all regular classes (non AP/H). Why not give it to the student who takes the most rigorous classes and has the highest weighted GPA? I know it was done that way at my HS back in 1986 and no one had a problem with the Val who gave the senior farewell speech. It’s kinda like giving the Nobel prize in chemistry to a dozen people because they all are doing an outstanding job to humanity in chemistry. Sort of diminishes the importance of the “award” if so many people receive it.
It would be an incredible achievement if the top student out of 1,200 could truly be identified, but the top 1% (12 kids) are all outstanding. They all took rigorous course loads and all deserved the honor, in my opinion. I appreciate that the school realized there really is no difference in the top 1-2%.
My D’s HS had 4 valedictorians (based on uw gpa, so all had 4.0’s), including her, the year she graduated in a class of about 400. While it may not be a big deal for some, getting that distinction was extremely motivating for her, and probably opened up opportunities for her coming from a middle-of-the-road school. If it had been weighted, she would NOT have had the top GPA as she didn’t take as many AP’s as 2 of the others, and she would have been fine with whatever distinction she got (or didn’t get), as would we.
Another school in the district (same criteria) had 45+ valedictorians. When everyone’s special, nobody is.
Why can’t people come to grips with the idea that it’s OK for there to be a #1 and it’s OK for that not to be you. Without getting in to the actual latin, the custom is for Valedictorian to be the #1 academic kid in the school, not the top 1%, 5%, etc. Weighting by rigor makes complete sense. Someone else receiving that honor is not a knock on the others, but rather an acknowledgement of extraordinary achievement for the one.
Better start learning these lessons now. The real world doesn’t say, “we’ll promote the top x% to the next level”. They actually make choices and A person gets that great promotion. They give out one Oscar for best Actor. One team wins the Super Bowl. One teacher gets teacher of the yr in their school. Competition is a good thing. Learning to deal with it is even better.
I don’t even remember who the Val and Sal of my HS class were. The day after HS graduation no one will care about this .
I don’t think there should be a Val or Sal at all. Of course if your school ranks, there will be a number one and number two kid, but it doesn’t have to be a public thing. There are schools around here where the Val and Sal are not mentioned at graduation, and are not speakers. The senior class votes for graduation speakers.
Frankly…I think Val and Sal are very overrated.
weighted grades has turned it all upside down. There’s a game being played with class ranks, and i appreciate the schools who have called out the kids (and parents) on it, and stopped ranking.
At my S20’s school, there is a valedictorian (not a class speaker); and the val goes off weighted grades. It’s become a race to the top, penalizing those who take non-honors classes of interest. At our school, it also favors the feeder middle schools which offer two years of foreign language, thus giving those freshmen the option of a weighted honors class in FL rather than a normal FL class. All UW 4.0s should be recognized I think.
(and this is not my kid. just saying I don’t like the games)
In theory, that is what it means, but even then, it is possible for three or more students to take all of the same courses and earn all of the same grades (let’s just say all A grades for example), resulting in a three or more way tie if valedictorian and salutatorian are determined by GPA.
It’s an interesting topic to me as I am ok with participation trophies as the kids know the difference between 1st place and getting a trophy for just their hard work and effort. When I coached it was nice to give all players a trophy and say some nice things about the kids. This was for recreational leagues which are a lot less competitive than travel ball / select teams.
But with Val/Sal it seems that the achievement is really diminished when the standards are lowered.
My kids’ schools had graduation speakers but not valedictorians. I hate the fact that at so many schools getting to valedictorian status is a matter of gaming the system. Don’t take honors art because it’s not weighted the same as an AP. Get out of gym to get that GPA boost. Remember Blair Hornstine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornstine_v._Township_of_Moorestown
I’m old school too, generally think there can be only 1 best. Back in my high school days, we had 2 Vals because both students got an A in every class all 4 yrs. One thing I didn’t think right was that special ed students, some taking 6th grade level courses, were mixed in with class rankings. I went to school long before the “everybody gets a trophy” idea.
I think setting an absolute level of achievement can be a good way to avoid games being played to beat your classmates. That way you know what you have to do, independent of others. But that standard should be high enough that it approximates to the top 1-2% of the class, not nearly 10% as at our high school. That would align pretty well with the 6-8 students who won the academic prizes and everyone knew were the smartest kids (though not the kids that went to Stanford/MIT).
I have no issue with one kid being best - but frankly that’s pretty far removed from the current system at a lot of schools. It’s turned into the one kid who is best able to avoid any unweighted classes. And full disclosure, my daughter has a huge advantage as she can waive half of her PE class requirements where the majority of her classmates have to take 4 semesters of PE. Why should she have an advantage because she has an off-block instead of PE? They can’t find kids willing to run for student council as it’s an unweighted class at their school, so being the class president will cost you 20+ places in class rank.
As an aside, I’ve never been able to figure out why some schools have EC’s like student council and yearbook listed as classes. Seems weird to me.
Sorry, but I think the days of Val and Sal are long past their prime and I’m glad that our district does not do them (4 high schools).
“Why can’t people come to grips with the idea that it’s OK for there to be a #1” To all who say this, in one way or another, why does so much in life need to be rated hierarchically? And then folks complain about how darned confusing “holistic” is. Nah.
Why is this what’s “motivating?” Rather than the learning? And don’t think val kids are necessarily “incredible achievers.” This is high school. Most hs are still formulaic learning, not some form of intellectual vitality. Even in small amounts, I think that vitality tops acing courses. (I am not talking about not trying to learn and grow or some unusual alternative schools.)
So mine went to a Quaker hs and no class ranks, no one “winner,” lots of collaboration. Cum Laude was abolished. Small graduating class. Happy college placements. And as I look on this class today, even the kids I didn’t particularly like at the time are productve young adults.