Out of curiosity, how does your child’s school pick their valedictorian? Are GPAs weighed? Class rigor considered?
In my school, they’re elected.
The kids can vote for anyone they choose, though invariably they choose from among the top 4 or 5 kids. They end up with speeches by top kids they like and admire.
There’s also a MAJOR award (the trophy is HUGE!) for the kids with the top 2 highest averages. But those kids are not always the ones chosen to speak at graduation.
My daughters’ high school does not have a valedictorian nor does it do class ranks. Students who would like to speak at graduation submit applications and are voted on.
My kids’ school weights grades for honors.and AP. It’s pretty common to have a tie–I think my son’s class had 2 valedictorians and 3 salutatorians.
At my high school the valedictorian did not give a speech–we elected someone to speak. That person and the valedictorian both got huge trophies. I graduated 3rd and was kind of relieved not to have to deal with that giant trophy.
At my old high school, Val was anyone with a 4.0+ GPA. Which meant something like 100 students (our graduating class was ~1600). The graduation speaker was voted on.
In our school district the val. and sal. are chose from their weighted GPAs after their first semester their senior year. (Honors classes and AP classes count for more). The Val. and Sal. and President of the Senior classes give the speech. Most time there is only 1 val, but my son was a co-val. of his class of 600.
At my kids’ school, the Val (they call it another name) has the highest weighted GPA (the school only does weighted), so typically the kid with the most AP classes (with most/all A+), has the highest GPA.
The school also names the students with the 5 highest GPAs.
At my kids’ school, and I believe others in the district, they use a 4.0 scale, with no pluses or minuses, which means plenty of straight A students. Honors and AP classes have a bonus tacked on to the UW cumulative GPA, not the individual course, and the bonus points are capped. The result is lots and lots of kids with 4.8 GPAs. My daughter’s graduating class this year will have 24 valedictorians out of 700+ seniors.
Highest unweighted gpa, 8 college semesters of AP classes plus complete the exams. AP test must be over 4 different curriculum, and 2 APs must be taken senior year.
Fortunately, our high school district does not do Val/Sal…
I do not understand how a valedictorian can be elected. I thought it was by definition the student(s) with the highest gpa (that up to the schools- using weighting or not to calculate the gpa used). Totally different than being chosen or elected to be the speaker. I do not get how a HS can have two (or more) valedictorians plus any salutatorians as the number two spot was taken by the tie.
Son’s HS did not weight grades. Nor did numbers of courses/rigor of courses et al matter. All courses, including phy ed, counted. I once asked a teacher if any special ed students could end up pushing others down in class rankings when I saw a child I knew was in special ed classes made the honor (high?) roll but that person said it doesn’t happen. It was strange to see the name of a subpar student in the newspaper’s list of honor roll students one semester.
There are so many ways to calculate grades et al. My HS did not give out class rankings- therefore no Val/Sal. The other NMS gave the graduation speech- he became an English professor while I went on in STEM fields. HS quickly becomes ancient history. And if it makes the difference in where one goes to college- that student was borderline for acceptance/scholarship money anyhow.
D’s school announced the val, sal and top 10 at graduation but only the val spoke. The student’s were chosen by GPA’s which were weighted. It was pretty much impossible to be in the top 10 without a lot of honors and AP classes.
S attended a magnet school - no class ranks, no val/sal etc.
I agree with wis75. I don’t get how a valedictorian can be elected.
My kids school has both weighted and unweighted val and sal. Because we use - and + it’s been pretty limited in number. Typically 1 weighted val and sal and 2 there are never more ( so far) than 2 unweighted. The unweighted always has a 4.0 in the 15 years they’ve been doing it this way.
NEITHER the Val’s or Sals speak. The class elect a speaker.
@wis75 , I believe by “definition” the valedictorian is the person who gives the “valedictory” or goodbye/farewell speech. How that person is chosen can be different in every school (elected vs. GPA).
Weighted GPA is used at our HS. Highest one is the Val. Second highest is the Sal.
Interesting all the variety in this. Our kids’ HS uses weighted GPA and only includes graduation requirements in the calculation for val and sal. Extra electives get dropped from the calculation. It has the advantage of helping the kids who want to take four years of band/orchestra/whatever not feel like they have to drop their electives to keep the weighted gpa higher. Sal and val speak at graduation as well as student council president. D was Sal last year. This year there were two vals and a sal and they all spoke.
At another school’s graduation we attended this year there were six vals, no sal. They gave two speeches in groups of three. it seemed to work well.
At another local school, whatever process they use routinely nets a dozen vals. They take applications for student speaker at graduation and choose from those.
All these are large public schools.
Highest weighted GPA. All classes included, even gym. They do GPA to the thousandth place but it’s not usually that close. Never heard of a tie.
No Val or Sal at our HS. The student speakers are the Student Council President and President of the Senior Class.
You can have 2 or more vals or sals by having multiple students with the same GPA. Pretty common if there’s no weighting I’d think. My kids’ school does weight but there are still usually some ties. We do not have +/- grades which probably makes it more likely.
Our school uses a weighted GPA. The Val speaks, but so does the class president. They calculate the GPA beyond significant digits so there’s never been a tie. There’s a ceremony for the top 20 or 25 in the class (over 600 in the graduating class.) At least one year I attended there was one student who hadn’t taken a lot of AP’s but did apparently get perfect grades in lower level classes. Our school had a 0-100 scale and they did not give out 100’s like candy and the weighting was very slight - a B in a regular course becomes a B+ in AP or honors some for either.