<p>Although the thread on valedictorian and salutatorian acceptances is interesting, it might be more informative to know where the val and sal were rejected.</p>
<p>2012: Val and sal both rejected from Stanford, val wait list at Harvard and Brown</p>
<p>Not sure about other rejections, but neither is going to an Ivy.</p>
<p>Ivies reject the vast majority of vals.</p>
<p>Not really vals and sals are rejected from most top schools and they are less likely to tell others where they got denied so i doubt this thread will grow large</p>
<p>Who cares, they are still probably going to another school be it Hopkins or Williams</p>
<p>Im my schools valedictorian and despite having, what I considered, unique and good ec’s and great essays, I was rejected to Princeton and wait listed to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern. I’m not sure what to make of being wait listed to so many schools, seeing as I have no hope of getting off the wait list for any of them. I understand how hard it is to get into these schools but I still feel a little cheated. Not sure there was any more I could have done to get into any of those schools. Just the luck of the draw 
whatever</p>
<p>Is this some sort of gloat thread? If so, it’s quite unseemly. What business is it of yours what schools rejected whom? </p>
<p>"2012: Val and sal both rejected from Stanford, val wait list at Harvard and Brown. Not sure about other rejections, but neither is going to an Ivy. "</p>
<p>Geez. Get a life. You’re about to graduate HS? Act like it.</p>
<p>Sorry. Not my intention at all. I was just thinking about what seems to be so many rejections this year and that so many are in the same boat. I was thinking about all who were not vals and sals would not necessarily have fared any better if we just had the one higher fraction of a grade point. Didn’t mean to dis the vals and sals.</p>
<p>Then plz accept my apologies JoSkeet. I concur with your conclusion that one or two ranking spots is relatively irrelevant.</p>
<p>I was ranked about 10th or 12th yet was accepted by all schools applied including multiple Ivies.</p>
<p>My school’s sal was rejected at Stanford…</p>
<p>My school’s valedictorian was rejected to UC Berkeley but got into UCSB UCI UCLA UCSD and YALE!!!</p>
<p>My school’s saludatorian was rejected to UC Berkeley as well but got into UCI UCSD UCLA and USC</p>
<p>Valedictorian - Caltech, UCs, HMC
Salutatorian - Yale, Stanford, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Caltech, UCs</p>
<p>Thought I would chime in a little late here…
I’m val at my random public school in NJ, and I was rejected from Penn, Swarthmore, Pomona, and Duke. My ECs are pretty lackluster on paper, and I don’t really hold any leadership positions, so to me, it was really no surprise.
I will be attending Haverford College.</p>
<p>My D is the Sal at medium sized Catholic school in IL. She was rejected by Stanford, UCLA and UCB. She is waitlisted at Notre Dame. She was accepted by USC, UCI, UCSD and U of IL. She had quality EC’s but not much leadership. I think the problem is “Bright Well Rounded Kid”. Good thing USC was her top choice.</p>
<p>At many schools it is not certain who the val and sal are going to be until the last minute,so many of these colleges don’t know (and don’t care) if they are rejecting them. Basically, when the apps are being examined at the most selective colleges, the student has to be in the top 1-5 kids in the class, unless the school is known to be the sort where huge numbers are highly qualified for those type of colleges. But the college does not necessarily care if the kid is #1 vs #3 and that standing could change in senior year with the next semester or year end grades. The same goes for SATs or other test scores. An “A” grade is given to test scores over a certain number and the adcoms often don’t even know if a given applicant has a perfect score or if the score is right at the bottom of that “A” category. You got the “A” for test scores, you’re all equal for test scores. The same with grades/class rank. A rating is given, and the schools don’t care if where the student is within that rating.</p>
<p>I think large public schools typically send only 1-3 at hypms (if at all). And you are compared regionally, so #1 from school A could still be ranked lower than #10 from school B. (The title val/sal doesn’t have meaning unless you really are top at the regional level.)</p>
<p>Prep school kids (the ones that spend over 30K/year on high school) have an edge…and that has to be somewhat due to the big legacies and general perception of the schools among the adComs. Yes that is unfair but that is life I guess. (I am talking harker, exeter, harvard westlake). All of these send like the top 5% (which is 20-30 students) all going to hypsc.</p>
<p>Our valedictorian was rejected at Northwestern and didn’t apply to any other top schools. I’m salutatorian and I was rejected from Stanford and Davidson (still confused). Our school is tiny and low achieving though, so I don’t know if we count.</p>
<p>
Yes, that counts because your Val/Sal may still be ranked far below than other 1% students of schools in your area. Again, the title means nothing. In some big competitive high schools, the top 1-5% have v little differences in their GPA…</p>
<p>No, that’s what I was saying. Since our school has so few students, if we were in a bigger pool, there would likely be many other kids who would be ranked ahead of us, so our “titles” don’t hold the same weight that they would in a school of 800.</p>
<p>I’m val at my school and I got rejected from Northwestern, Rice, and Stanford. I got waitlisted from Penn, Brown, Cornell, WashU, and Johns Hopkins. I got into UCB, Duke, UCLA, Emory, and Carnegie Mellon. I’ll be attending Duke.</p>
<p>Added together, there are about 48,000 students valedictorians or salutatorians in the US. High schools vary greatly in quality and in the level of competition within the school. The top student at one school may not be better than a middling student at another. Further, at many schools the val/sal is the student with the highest GPA. Sometimes that is achieved by doing nothing else but studying. In that case, it is not entirely clear that the valedictorian is a stronger student than someone further down the list but who has many other notable achievements. Being valedictorian is certainly something to be proud of but it is not necessarily a ticket to a particular college. Nothing really is.</p>