Should high schools have only one Valedictorian?

By “winners”, do you mean high school students who get admitted to highly selective colleges? Yes, high SES towns commonly have lots of “winners”, middle SES towns may have one or a few, and low SES towns usually have none.

@ucbalumnus No, I am not talking about college at all. I am talking about winning awards specifically addressing the issues related to valedictorian/salutorian as others have mentioned. That’s the thread ( not income inequality which is your point)

I fall clearly to the side of having a single Val/Sal. Competition is a fact in life and while it may not be the only thing it is certainly not a bad thing. If some want to pursue the goal of being Val/Sal then more power to them. If some don’t care that is certainly their right as well. Each person can pursue that which makes them most satisfied. In Texas only a single person can win the Val award for each school no matter how many may be “called” Valedictorian. It provides one year of tuition waver at any state school so it is not a minor award, rather worth somewhere around $10K. And yes it may take some gaming of the system to get to be competitive but how is that any different from any competition? You have to know how to play, plan your strategy, Have good coaching, and finally execute. Our HS, although changing to be less “stressful” for the kids grades on a 100 point scale with 10 point bump for AP and “pre-AP” classses. Classes in MS and DE classes are excluded as they do not calculate into GPA. this means there are tough choices to be made in some cases. We have not had a tie for top gpa in the last 20 years (although my DD18 did tie for 7th to the fourth decimal point with one of her good friends). The top students all know where they stand for the most part and being top 6% and in top 10 overall gets you special recognition and admission to UT and all other public U’s.
I may be in the minority but I see way to much focus on collaboration and group and not enough on competition and striving to be the very best. Just my opinion.

I think its important to remember that I was talking about a six year old. Of course we celebrated and showed how proud we were. But, If that is all someone needs to feel good about an achievement, why give a ribbon to the first place winner? Shouldn’t she also be satisfied with a trip to the zoo? Honestly, I’m not arguing that there should not have been a winner. This was a science competition. I’m saying there is also room for the ribbons that recognize that for some things, showing up is an achievement as well. Its no small feat for a six year old to hold her ground under adult questioning without a parent nearby. I understand that part of the lesson is learning that you can’t always win. But wouldn’t a better lesson be, you can’t always be the first place winner, but that doesn’t mean your contributions aren’t important?

Actually, at every high school performance I have ever seen, the tech crew comes out and takes a bow.

@txsparty I’m in your camp. There are real awards here ( as you cited) tied to grades. Some posters have even mentioned specialized scholarships tied to being V/S. That matters to the kid (and his/her parents) who wins.
Some kids chose not to participate, that’s fine. But having winners is a part of life. You can chose to ignore this. But it will still happen.

Given all the grade inflation and the difficulties in ranking, not to mention the schools that have dozens of Valdictorians, I wonder why specific Valdictorian scholarships still exist.

Meaning that there are sometimes the wrong incentives in terms of educational development. For example:

  • Choosing an AP lite (ES, statistics, human geography) instead of a core academic course like precalculus, foreign language level 3 or 4, or physics, or an advanced college course like multivariable calculus.
  • Choosing an empty period instead of an *extra* non-weighted elective course (band or orchestra are typical examples).

My boys’ high school has a valedictorian and salutatorian, as well as an IB valedictorian and salutatorian. Valedictorians will be the students with the highest grade point average in the graduating class within each group and salutatorians the second highest GPA in each group. If two or more students have the same GPA, and have the highest GPAs in the class, those students will all be the valedictorians. If there is more than one valedictorian, there will be no salutatorian. The only weighted grades that will be used to calculate Valedictorian/Salutatorian will be AP and IB Diploma courses and Concurrent Enrollment courses that have been approved for weighted grades by the district office.

Since my boys were applying to colleges that are highly holistic in nature in admissions practices and where vals and sals get routinely rejected, I figured my boys didn’t need the additional stresses of trying to attain these, to us, meaningless status symbols. I inculcated in their mindset, on the other hand, the significant importance of participating in high school events like proms, homecoming, school plays, football games, parties, etc. In the end, they graduated in top 5%, got to enjoy all the fun stuff that high school had to offer and something for them to look back years from now on with fondest of memories, and got to attend the colleges they really like. And thank goodness, I no longer have to listen to the speeches of 2 vals and 2 sals, the class president, the class speaker, principal, teacher, superintendent and on and on during each of my boys’ graduation ceremony.

In Georgia, at every public and private high school with 50 or more students, the valedictorian and salutatorian who meets Georgia Board of Regent minimum requirements for admission will be guaranteed acceptance into every in-state school (including Georgia Tech and UGA). The designation is used to get top students from inner cities/rural areas of the state to consider the state’s top schools and makes a val/sal designation possibly life changing in Georgia. All of the things that make figuring out who is a true valedictorian/salutatorian are self-inflicted and could be solved with procedural changes (Lots of schools have no issue figuring out who are the Val and Sal). I am not sure there is a better way for our tax funded state colleges and universities to ensure representation from all of the high schools in the state of Georgia.

This thread is making me chuckle.

We have nothing to indicate when our kids were on honor roll…because the school didn’t give anything.

Neither of our kids got academic awards (I think one should have)…but really…all they would have gotten was a computer generated certificate. Big deal.

We had a ton of soccer trophies. They were all identical from various years. The only difference was the little plaque with the year. Again…big deal. We got rid of all of them.

My husband could have been an Olympic qualifiying swimmer. We have a box of (useless) swimming medals in our attic. Again…big deal. They haven’t been out of the box since at least 1979. They need to go to the dump.

My kids appreciated the pizza party at the end of a sports season far more than they appreciated the LONG drawn out sports awards night. One kid just chose not to go…fine with us.

My class rank 8 kid got a gift card to a local coffee shop…and that was a big hit too.

Do you all have a bunch of Dean’s list letters too? We pitched those as well.

Fact is…none of these things matter one day after they are received.

Oh…and you paid extra each year so your kid could get an identical trophy for rec sports. What a waste.

i keptthe varsity swim ribbon cuz the only reason she got it was there weren’t enough kids to fill the team without her. Kept it for the irony. She wasn’t competitive ar all.

At my kids’ schools there is no honour roll and there is no salutatorian (I’d never even heard of that before reading about it here). The valedictorian is selected by the graduating class as their representative making it a popularity contest and not about grades.

Fact is…none of these things matter one day after they are received.

I agree that they are only important if the Kid feels they are important. But I wonder do family photos get the same treatment? souvenirs from trips? these are the moments that make up our lives and those of our kids. For our DD Track and Field just happened to lead to running at D1 this year, something we never expected and she never even really thought she wanted to do.
Again I would let those with interest or drive to do so compete for the honor. Those that don’t care dont have to participate in the arms race.

ucbalumnus: I agree but that is the students choice isn’t it? DD mentioned above dropped V-ball class after season to lose the 100 so it would not drag down her GPA. Being top 10 was important to her but not important enough to not play Volleyball so she found a way to make it all work.

High School is about more than just academics, or sports, or social, or competition it is about all of them leading to the next step in life. Hopefully each can choose their own right way and find the challenge they prefer.

S had many trophies, plaques, medals, etc (athletic and academic). Some were of the participation type and others were earned (not to say that showing up and participating isn’t a form of earning - will actually take one far in life). When cleaning out his closet one yr he tossed all the participation awards. We asked him why. He clearly new the difference and was quite proud of the ones he earned (Top This / Top That). He actually wrote a college admission essay on this topic explaining the difference between the satisfaction of simply being part of a group and excelling within the group.

And collaboration IS one of the traits a top college looks for. Not the low level everybody gets to sing a line in the play, but the attitude in academics and ECs.

“Fact is…none of these things matter one day after they are received.”

Where are people getting this idea from? If you’re a top 9% in class rank in CA and you have been selected as ELC (eligiblity by local context), you get auto admit into a UC, that matters. Deans list from a non-fluff school matters, scholarship money tied to being a val matters, even if you’re a co-valedictorian with 30 others at tough high school that matters.

I know a student who wrote to a college he was waitlisted at, told them about keeping his grades up, being named co-valedictorian and getting a teacher’s award for a class. I’m sure for other reasons as well, but he got off the waitlist. Getting off the waitlist at a top-20 school matters. I’m going to guess they were 50 other co-vals, but the college knew it was a tough, competitive high school.

@theloniusmonk

Ok…so maybe bein Val matters to that student sometimes…until he or she gets accepted to the college of their choice.

But I seriously doubt it matters to any of his classmates, teachers or friends.

And really…most kids get accepted to college before the class Val is even named. At our school…that is done the middle of the second semester senior year. Well before May 1.

You might not be able to “cash in” on participation trophies. But being able to attend a great state U in GA or CA based on your GPA, is certainly something many thousands of kids would consider valuable and wish they had access to.

So TX and CA give special perks to vals or the top x%. I still view this as some hierachical race. Meanwhile, are they developng as satisfied and effective young adults? Getting smarter other than the book learning and hs tests?

Our county- one of the largest school districts in the nation just got rid of Val and Sal this year. After watching how the weighted system worked in our county, I’m okay with it going away. There is no reward for our university system. Plenty of high GPA kids gave up points to pursue the arts and other things they enjoyed, while others picked easier AP/IB to get some of the top GPAs. Those who took the most challenging classes ended up 3,4,5… In the end, they all got the acceptances they wanted long before Val and Sal were announced.