<p>chocoholic, off topic but if the fianl exam results aren't in until after graduation how do they determine if those who are barely passing are actually able to graduate? At our large public (over 3000) there are always some who must pass ever class in that final semster to be able to graduate and some regrettfully don't make the grade.</p>
<p>Packmom, at our school seniors take finals a week earlier than the rest, and their grades are computed (even though their transcripts are not "finalized").</p>
<p>Advantagious, to some extent, I don't believe in a reliable correlation between SAT scores and brightness (IOW, getting a 1550 doesn't necessarily mean you are smarter than a 1450). However, I have seen the case where a sal ends up getting there by who-knows-how means, and has a score somewhere in the 1100-1200 range. There IS usually an explanation for that, which has to do with the classes taken, the teachers, strategy, etc. I guess what I'm saying is that a huge differential in SAT scores is meaningful, but not a small one.</p>
<p>It does occur to me that I have to qualify my statement about my HS's Vals by saying that they both got terrifically high ACT scores, which has only solidified by opinion that the ACT favors math/science students. But I made that statement more on the basis of what I know of these students overall, not really on their test scores. I did have to laugh, though, when one of the Vals grumbled to me about the fact that he won no award at the senior awards night by saying that he should have won a "most (academically) well rounded" award...isn't that what Val is?!</p>
<p>Son had his graduation on Monday. While he was not #1 or 2, he was in top of his class, and had numerous honors. </p>
<p>I thought the pecking order was all about the regalia - the cords, the special tassel, the stole, the medals, and how many astericks after your name. What I was suprised to learn was the the REAL pecking order at our graduation was how much of a commotion your "possey" could make when you crossed the stage.</p>
<p>Moral of the story - there are lots of ways to make kids "feel good".</p>
<p>By the way - in our school the grading is on 100 point system and courses are weighted for honors, pre-AP, and AP. GPA's are calculated with three decimal points. There is rarely a tie for Val or Sal. Val gave the speech, Sal gave introductions. Student Council Pres gave the invocation, and the ROTC Cadet Group Commander led the Pledge of Allegiance. I liked the fact they honored both academics and leadership in this way.</p>
<p>One last point - they introduced the top 10% and asked the parents to stand to be acknowledged as well. A nice touch, that made "me" feel good too.</p>
<p>^^^That was my biggest fear...that someone's lousy family would cover up my name with their cheers for junior. The school strongly dissuades cheering, and it IS an issue because of how quickly they call names (students come up from both sides of the stage and are 5 feet away from the respective podium (one on each side) when their name is called...it is literally one name and the next 2 or 3 seconds later), but as you can imagine that didn't prevent many families from whooping it up.</p>
<p>Packmom, our HS has finals from Friday into next Thursday, followed by graduation that Friday, so I'm not sure how they handle the borderline students. Maybe since they already know in advance, that they are possibly not graduating they get graded first or something? No idea. Not graduating is very rare at our HS. This year there is one student who is not graduating (out of 400) and nothing he does on the finals is going to change that.</p>
<p>We have a lot of students who don't graduate. Also have a lot who are not promoted to the next grade each year because you must pass both math and english to be promoted. Had a friend whose kid did not know if he was graduating until the morning of graduation!</p>
<p>The whooping drives me crazy. Every year the officials ask to hold all applause until the end but it's like pouring water on a duck's back. There is even a warning in our newspaper that people will be removed from the auditorium if it gets out of hand but that never happens. </p>
<p>The whoops and cheers start as soon as the kids walk in. The ceremonies go very quickly as our sch. is part of a very large public system so the grad. services are stacked up back to back for days in a large city auditorium. As soon as the ceremony is over, you must clear the building so the next high sch. can get in. I wish it were still held at the high sch. </p>
<p>The family sitting behind us at S1's grad. whooped practically from start to finish. My in-laws (old/poor health) had driven 7 hours to see their first grandchild graduate. I felt so bad that it was such a circus. Tried to warn them but they insisted on coming. </p>
<p>I confess to checking the school yearbook to see which kids were alphbetically next to my S's to try to guess if they would have whooping families or not!</p>
<p>Our graduation is held in the football stadium, so that is condusive to a bit of wild behavior. There are always a handful of air horns. They call the names of the Honor grads first - we're near the beginning of the alphabet, so the crowd hasn't gotten too wild yet when our kids have been called. But after the Honor Grads are done (90 average and above), the crowd gets wilder. I assume it is because there are a lot more families elated that there kid is even there. It is only individual families whooping, so it isn't continual. Just because it is outside, it isn't an extremely formal event, and there is plenty of talking and movement. (They have a concession stand, too.)</p>
<p>This year (at D's graduation) there were two moms sitting in front of us discussing how they'd found out that morning that their kids were graduating. Had received the results of finals. It was a bit eye-opening to me. I guess I take certain things for granted.</p>
<p>This was my last kid graduating, and I have to confess that I enjoyed some of the nose-thumbing of rules that went on. It has irritated me in the past (and I was still "good" myself), but after such a tiresome year, I had some sympathy with those who were in effect saying, I don't have to listen to your rules anymore. (I hate the airhorns, though! They searched our bags entering the stadium - why can't they confiscate those?) I also minded that the family next to us was drunk! The smell was awful.</p>
<p>During one of the speeches, the teacher of the year said, "You think you're leaving us behind, but ___HS is now part of you, and will go with you wherever you go." And my S2 said "Kill me now." He said it loud enough that a handful of people sitting near us broke up. </p>
<p>As happens every year, kids sneak in beach balls and start volleying them around during the speeches. They have teachers interspersed with the grads to intercept them. The crowd would cheer everytime the teachers missed, and moan everytime they got one. The teachers themselves would high-five each other when they were successful. It was entertaining.</p>
<p>After the turning of the tassel, the kids did something I'd never seen before -- the wave! It was pretty funny.</p>
<p>All in all, it was a much less somber experience this last time around. Funny how perspective changes over the years.</p>
<p>My oldest two graduated in the high school stadium "arena style." With about 800 grads (good thing all 1,200 didn't graduate, eh?) they looked like ants at a picnic. It took over 20 minutes for them to walk in and be seated. They also were frisked ahead of time (although razor phones are harder to detect) and had teachers interspersed at the end of the rows to keep order. Names were called by alternating sides which got confusing because they started with A's and M's. You had to keep two places marked in your program. In the bulletin the Val, Sal, top ten, suma and cum students were listed, but nothing else. No mention of awards etc...just crank 'em through.</p>
<p>Sitting on the aluminum bleachers in the hot Texas sun was not much fun. Nor were the air horns, cow bells, silly string, balloon dispersals, whoop whooping etc..The school even sold concessions. I guess they figured we couldn't make it two hours without pickles and candy bars. Note to self: Do not sit behind a family that comes right before you alphabetically or their hands and rear ends will be in all of your photos. :(</p>
<p>I look forward to when my younger two graduate. They will have about 80 in their graduating class so there is more time to reflect on accomplishments and savor the moment. I do expect the same boorish behavior, though, minus the concession stand.</p>
<p>Pickles??? Must be a Texas thing.</p>
<p>I'm laughing about the rear ends in all your photos!</p>
<p>I have been informed by my daughter that I only need to listen to them call the first couple of dozen names because she will be in that group (band and chorus members go first so they can get back to their performing groups). And because she will have her instrument case, she can easily carry a cell phone so that we can find each other afterwards. (And if that's against the rules, who cares? What are they going to do, suspend her?)</p>
<p>There are advantages to having a band geek for a kid.</p>
<p>The kid herself is not especially looking forward to graduation, though. She says it's incredibly boring, and she should know since she sat through the last three with the rest of the band.</p>
<p>I need to go back to the "feel good" reference in the OP.</p>
<p>At DS honors night, the Math Department award presentation was given with the following introduction, "Although ______ sometimes could not fully grasp some of the difficult concepts in Calculus, they always came to class prepared and gave it their best effort." If you're thinking that nobody grasped them, that was not the case.</p>
<p>So an A for effort - say what????</p>
<p>Fast forward 5 years.</p>
<p>So ______, I see that the bridge you engineered fell down, but since you gave the plan your best effort, no problem.</p>
<p>Sticker...pickles are definitely a Texas thang. They sell them at the movies, too. You don't eat them, you slurp on them. argh.</p>
<p>I am hoping my rear end did not make a guest appearance in someone else's pictures! Shiny bald spots also add interest but you can explain them away as sun spots. :p</p>
<p>
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The kid herself is not especially looking forward to graduation, though. She says it's incredibly boring, and she should know since she sat through the last three with the rest of the band.
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</p>
<p>Ditto my S, whose prayers were answered by a torrential downpour and thunderstorm. Despite the life-threatening conditions, we near drowned for about 20 minutes till the principal brought the events to an end with the words "Congratulations, you're all graduated. Seek cover!"</p>
<p>"two kids were homeschooled and never set foot in the HS except for sports or jazz band."</p>
<p>It's very strange to me that these homeschoolers had their (parent-given, right?) GPA calculated with the public school student grades.</p>
<p>Of course their homeschoolers' parents gave them straight-As, right?</p>
<p>Yeah, that seems weird to me...admitting my bias as someone who is home-schooling suspicious (yes, plenty of people do it for the right reasons...and plenty for the wrong reasons), it seems odd to me that families that wouldn't send their kids to the school would have them included in the graduation ceremonies. Isn't homeschooling pretty much always done because a family feels that the school doesn't offer their child what they need? Why jump into the graduation, then?</p>
<p>"two kids were homeschooled and never set foot in the HS except for sports or jazz band."</p>
<p>It's very strange to me that these homeschoolers had their (parent-given, right?) GPA calculated with the public school student grades.</p>
<p>Of course their homeschoolers' parents gave them straight-As, right? "</p>
<p>Here the school district has a home school advisor at the central office. Her job is to coordinate with families that prefer the HS environment. They try to help whomever is in the district. </p>
<p>As far as their grades? Personally didn't care all that much, just worried about mine. Mine got theirs and had their pick of schools. One of the hs kids parents were phd's and quite knowledgable. Our only worries for her was her desire to get away from home and live(party) in college. She really felt she missed something away from school and was going to make for it at college. </p>
<p>Now if we did it the highlander way (there can be only one!) I might have felt differently. Which gets back to my point about make a set of rules and whoever hits them.. fine. I think the saying was alot of room under the tent? ;)</p>
<p>"Isn't homeschooling pretty much always done because a family feels that the school doesn't offer their child what they need? Why jump into the graduation, then"</p>
<p>My guess? the Val label travels well to colleges. In the system we have, without forcing an absolute #1, we didn't have to worry it. Nobody's kid who made the requirement's got edged out. </p>
<p>"Worry it"? With all the things we have to fret about as parents, ya gotta admit that just meeting the requirements for val (while hard and stressful) is far better stress wise than setting up a knockout round with other families with our long swords. (sorry can't get off the highlander references) </p>
<p>And while I'm sure we're all "staints" here...... and would never evy or complain about another's situation... ;).... (you betcha) if we felt the least bit slighted.</p>
<p>It's nice to see these other families, make a little BBQ and toast the kids success together(and mean it) before they go their separate ways to college. Rather than force a smile through gritted teeth and fake support... because of something three decimal places off. </p>
<p>And to the poster who labelled it "feel good", you're right "it does feel good."
It feels good not to resent anybody or have anybody resent us, over my kids and theirs on at least one aspect of growing up. </p>
<p>Being involved in sports heavily I know how people can be about varsity, jv, starters,positions and what not. It was nice not to have to care on this issue. Believe me, there's still lots of others.</p>
<p>Well, to be frank, that kind of rubs me the wrong way. If you are going to, for lack of a better word, scorn the public high school system, then you should be willing not to make a grab for the valedictorian status. Shouldn't expect one without the other.</p>
<p>Sometimes, and IMHO in the example I gave, the "feel good" route goes way too far and diminishes real achievement. In the end of course, the objective is to learn the course material and achievement less than a complete understanding should not be celebrated as exemplary.</p>