That’s funny! The politician gets the recognition instead of the person who actually accomplished something. That’s not normal. Every other high school I’ve seen gives recognition to a valedictorian. Sounds like your school is being politically correct. Don’t worry about. Just ace the SAT and you’ll be fine.
We have a val/sal which isn’t determined until a few days before graduation (after senior finals, 4th quarter grades, and final gpa is known). There is a school newspaper handed out at graduation with a section done shortly before that lists the top 10 and where they are going. We also have a senior awards night a few days before graduation where there is a good chance a val would be getting at least one academic acknowledgement. At graduation the val and sal are announced, applauded and college mentioned (I know the Val is going to Yale). The val is allowed to give a very short speech if desired.
Our class president this year is the one who was elected by the students and part of that is picking a person who will give a speech at graduation besides the class orator. This is more of the student keynote speaker. Our class president is taking a gap year with zero plans made at the time of graduation and gradewise is probably an average student. However he was chosen to represent the entire student body that makes of the Class of 2018 (20xx). Our school is big on being individuals but graduation being a time to come together with everyone combined being the Class of 2018. Our school seems to believe that the class president was elected by the student body and represents all levels of students. The val in theory doesn’t represent any other student or level.
For the most part, one is self focused, the other community focused. Both types of individuals make the world interesting.
I would much rather be class president than val/sal from a college application perspective. Why? Being val/sal doesn’t show anything additional that isn’t already evident in your grades/GPA. Being class president shows another dimension. I remember a presentation by an AO from Vandy. She described one thing they like to see is the “Mayor” of the school. This could be demonstrated in many ways. But being elected to something by your peers (Team captain, Student Gov, etc.) shows them that you are likeable and have leadership qualities. Val/Sal shows something, but that is also shown by a 4.0ish GPA with rigorous schedule.
20.AP and honors classes get.22225 added to their scores. An A=4. So in you example both would have an unweighted GPA of 4.Both would have .22225 times 6 equally 1.3335. If you add that to the 4 you would get 5.3335 weighted GPAfor both.If I did the math right.
I don’t think being elected class president shows leadership qualities at all- it often shows popularity. However, that doesn’t mean being class president is worthless. If you do worthwhile things for your class and put in good work, then it’s a great title to have and is equally/more honorable than valedictorian.
But either way, I think it’s silly to pit them together like that. It’s just a high school graduation.