valedictorian?

Parents Forum
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<p>I didn’t say all colleges recalculate GPAs, I said many do. And NACAC backs me up on this: they report that “more than half of colleges recalculate applicants’ GPAs to standardize them.” </p>

<p>[Factors</a> in the Admission Decision](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/Pages/Factors-in-the-Admission-Decision.aspx]Factors”>http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/Pages/Factors-in-the-Admission-Decision.aspx)</p>

<p>Nor am I persuaded that private universities just get too many applicants to recalculate, because many public universities get just as many applicants and do recalculate (and surely you’re not suggesting that the private colleges are incapable of doing what their public counterparts routinely do!) For example, the University of Central Florida got 33,968 applicants in 2011, and it says: “Your GPA is recalculated based on the academic core courses (including English, math, science, social studies and foreign language). UCF uses a 4.0 grading scale, and also awards additional quality points for any weighted courses within the academic core.”</p>

<p>Similarly, Florida State (28,313 applicants): "The Office of Admissions recalculates all grade point averages — we do not use the GPAs listed on your high school transcript or report card. Only academic subjects will be used in the recalculation. Grades of C- or better in dual enrollment, AICE, AP, and IB coursework will receive 1 full bonus point in the recalculation; grades of C- or better in honors, pre-AICE, pre-AP, and pre-IB will receive 1/2 bonus point.”</p>

<p>And Michigan State (28,416 applicants): "“When reviewing an application for admission, the counseling staff in the Office of Admissions evaluates the following areas (in order of importance):

  1. Strength of high school curriculum; students are encouraged to take a college preparatory curriculum
  2. Recalculated GPA using only the core academic courses (English, mathematics, physical and biological sciences, social science, and foreign language courses). . . ."</p>

<p>On the other hand, the University of Michigan discontinued the practice of recalculating HS GPAs in 2009.</p>

<p>Private colleges and universities are generally less transparent about what they do, but Notre Dame and Pomona say they don’t recalculate, opting instead for a “holistic” (i.e., eyeball-test) review of the transcript, while Oberlin says it does recalculate: “For every application we receive, the first reader of your application (that’s your regional representative . . . ) will re-calculate an unweighted four-point GPA, using only your grades in core academic classes.”</p>

<p>And according to this slightly dated Wall Street Journal article, Johns Hopkins, Emory, and Carnegie Mellon recalculate, while Yale does not, and some colleges (Gerogetown, Haverford) claim to ignore GPA altogether in favor of class rank, which they’ll just estimate if they don’t have an actual rank:</p>

<p>[Why</a> Colleges Scoff At Your Kid’s GPA - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB105899458688282900.html]Why”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB105899458688282900.html)</p>

<p>I don’t think the actual recalculation is nearly as hard as you make it out to be. An experienced reader can probably recalculate a HS transcript in about a minute; and that work would be parceled out across probably dozens of readers. As for borderline calls as to whether a class is a “core academic” subject or not, the Carnegie Mellon rep quoted in the WSJ article has an obvious solution: “When in doubt, we typically include [it].”</p>

<p>The bigger question is whether they want to do the recalculation. By and large, public universities are more numbers-driven, and I suspect as public institutions they feel a greater obligation to be fair to all applicants as measured by objective criteria, pushing them in the direction of recalculating. Private universities are really just looking to cull an interesting and diverse and capable class out of the pile, and many are willing to be more subjective (or “holistic,” if you prefer), so the eyeball test may suit them just fine. But clearly the privates are divided on this, as are, to some extent, the publics, though I suspect in the end more publics than privates recalculate.</p>

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<p>My daughter took the classes she wanted to take. Theater classes and choral classes, all unweighted. She ended up number 3 in her class.
Numbers 1 and 2 manipulated which classes they took so they could rank higher.
DD is very happy she took the classes that she took.</p>

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<p>maxwell, my kid who got into Harvard took 1 AP as a freshman, 1 as a sophomore, 3 as a junior, 4 as a senior and 1 post AP course (linear equations.) He ended up in the top 2% of his class. My kid who got into U of Chicago, Tufts, and Vassar took 1 AP as a sophomore, 2 as a junior and 3 as a senior. (I’m count Calc BC and Physics C as 1 course.) He ended up in the top 6% of his class.</p>

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<p>I don’t know if NACAC is towing a party line, but we don’t recalculate (private, most competitive.) Why should we? To see if Sally really did numerically better than Sam, who has a higher rank? For what purpose? Our admissions are holistic. One quick look at the transcript will tell you if Sally took the most rigorous classes and how she did. And whether Sam meandered through something less challenging. Rank, if reported, is just one element. We can take what the GC reports and turn the page. Rigor and performance are in black and white, on the transcript. That’s what’s valued. Among other things. Don’t underestimate holistic, at a private.</p>

<p>No time to continue this thought, at the moment.</p>

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<p>You are confusing the valedictorian honor that the high school gives with “most challenging” course load designation that the GC provides. For the student you describe, the val with the non-rigorous courses, the college’s recalculated GPA may well be lower than what the school provided, especially if the school uses unweighted grades in the class rank calculation. But he will still be the valedictorian. </p>

<p>The only way the college could legitimately consider him stripped of that honor be if they similarly recalculated the grades of all the top students from the same high school to make the comparison. It’s unlikely that the college would even know whether all the other kids who were in the running for val honors even applied to their school or not.</p>

<p>It’s true that this val might not get the most rigorous designation, which will weaken his chances at a selective college. But no matter what the college does with his grades he’ll still be valedictorian and will still get whatever boost the school chooses to give for applicants with that honor. And the college can still add him to their pile of vals they will brag about having enrolled should they admit him and he attends.</p>

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<p>As schools have changed over the decades with regard to depth and breath of classes, the designation of valedictorian is often a reflection of many different variables as compared to several decades ago when kids pretty much all took the same classes and were on a prescribed trajectory and it was fairly easy to rank order those students. These days many schools do not identify a val or sal and instead takes the top students and recognizes them all (as our public school does) eliminating the need to say that X class if more difficult than Y class. It does not diminish the honor for the students in any way and some schools “like” to make claims about the number of vals or sals, but it does not always necessarily mean the same thing as decades prior.</p>

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<p>“You are confusing the valedictorian honor that the high school gives with “most challenging” course load designation that the GC provides. For the student you describe, the val with the non-rigorous courses, the college’s recalculated GPA may well be lower than what the school provided, especially if the school uses unweighted grades in the class rank calculation. But he will still be the valedictorian.”</p>

<p>No, I’m not confused, not on this point anyway. I’ve never suggested that the valedictorian would–or should–be stripped of the honor. My question was aimed at whether given the gpa recalculations by the colleges or the transcript review or whatever you want to call it, the honor of being named valedictorian would still be strong enough that a kid should shy away from classes that might threaten that honor. I don’t know the answer and was curious to hear what others felt.</p>

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<p>Exactly, momofthreeboys. And more and more schools don’t rank at all or rank very loosely.</p>

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<p>Sorry for the typos, my computer is thinking for itself tonight…</p>

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<p>Most colleges weigh candidates based on the rigor of their high school. It never hurts to be a top student at a high school with a rigorous curriculum…unless you didn’t take a rigorous curriculum and someone else at the school took a tougher curriculum and ended up in the top 10%. You often hear anecdotal stories of the #1 kid being turned down at a college where the #4 kid is accepted. So in and of itself the title val at high schools that still name vals has honor but it doesn’t necessarily propel over other kids FROM THE SAME SCHOOL who are applying to the same college. My gut says most colleges like to see top 10% or higher in a small school and that is the hurdle that has meaning. And again, if you’ve got a kiddo at a school that still uses val/sal designation and they are to be the “one”, then congrats…it is still a great honor.</p>

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<p>Having valedictorian status by the end of junior year and mid year senior year is said to be greatly helpful for admissions at super-selective colleges that consider class rank. That does provide incentive for students to “game” their high school’s class ranking system (regarding weighting of honors courses, avoiding taking non-weighted electives, etc.).</p>

<p>As far as GPA recalculation goes, the California public schools do it, but they have the applicants enter their courses and grades into the application, from which recalculation is done in an automated fashion. I can imagine it being a lot of work if the colleges just receive transcripts that do not have standardized format or grade reporting. I have a hard time imagining a college taking any weighted GPA printed on a high school transcript at face value, though.</p>

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<p>Here are the val/sal stats for Dartmouth for the class of 2016:</p>

<p>[Dartmouth</a> Offers 2,180 Students Acceptance to the Class of 2016|Dartmouth Now](<a href=“http://now.dartmouth.edu/2012/03/dartmouth-offers-2180-students-acceptance-to-the-class-of-2016/]Dartmouth”>http://now.dartmouth.edu/2012/03/dartmouth-offers-2180-students-acceptance-to-the-class-of-2016/)</p>

<p>Excerpt:</p>

<p>“Academic Profile:
Of those students whose secondary school report a class rank:
43.8% are valedictorians
12.7% are salutatorians
93.8% rank in the top 10% of their high school class.”</p>

<p>These numbers would suggest that Dartmouth takes the val designation pretty seriously.</p>

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<p>"I’m old school…I don’t think a sophomore in high school should be concerned with positioning themselves for valedictorian. " - We took that route and are not sorry.</p>

<p>Music makes my son tick. So there was no question that he would take lots of unweighted music classes. We didn’t “play the game” on class rank. He was about 15 of 350. He had Bs that the salutatorian, but more unweighted A’s. I don’t think it impacted college acceptances because he had great SATs etc. It may have prevented him from getting a scholarship for employee children from my corporation. But it did provide lots of fun, friendship with bous of unexpected top awards. </p>

<p>If I had understood things more in freshman year, I would have questioned the GC decision to put him in an unweighted business class (study halls were full). That was a meaningless unwieghted class for him, and it did ding his class rank a bit.</p>

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<p>High schools should really reconsider how their GPA weighting schemes affect class rank when they can actually deter a student from taking an additional unweighted course instead of a study hall or empty period.</p>

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<p>I don’t think most colleges that consider rank distinguish between the top people from a high school unless there was a real difference in performance like one got a B in a tough AP class and another got an “A”. They look at the transcripts and see the general rigor of the classwork, and it’s hard for me to believe that they penalize people for taking orchestra or something of that nature.</p>

<p>That said, I agree with Hunt that there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of gaming in terms of class choice if you don’t have strong feelings about a particular class. Another alternative is to take a class at a community college or university in the area you enjoy but is not officially honors.</p>

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<p>Yes, this would be an easy fix to the algorithm of weighted GPA.</p>

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<p>One fix would be to use grade points, not GPA, to determine rank. That way, any additional course will be favored over a study hall or empty period.</p>

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<p>At the very least you can count only academic classes when computing a WGPA. Interestingly my younger son’s GPA was actually higher because all his 99’s and 100’s from orchestra were part of his GPA even though they weren’t weighted. He took two different orchestra courses every year he was in high school on top of a demanding schedule. It certainly didn’t hurt him - he did much, much better in admissions than we expected.</p>

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<p>When looking at Dartmouth, those stats don’t really tell you anything. Those percentages are from only the schools that report rank - many no longer do that, so it is only meaningful for that subset of applicants. But also, you have to consider that some schools name multiple valedictorians. If they use an unweighted average to rank, and 25 students have a perfect 4.0 GPA, then there are 25 students ranked #1.</p>

<p>You also have to consider the applicant pool at Dartmouth. The students most likely to apply are those at the top of their class, which would skew the number higher. And again, really strong schools where there might be a considerable number of students qualified to attend Dartmouth may be less likely to rank. My high school dropped class ranks before I attended in the 80’s because they knew there was no fair way to compare student with few similar classes.</p>

<p>What might be more interesting would be to compare the percentage of valedictorians who apply with the percentage accepted.</p>

<p>Status as Valedictorian is relative anyway. Dartmouth is more likely to accept a lower ranked student at a school where the average SAT score is 2000 than the Valedictorian from a school where the average is 1200, and that student only scored 1900. All the designation means is you are the top student among a specific set of students.</p>

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<p>No, they tell you something quite significant. They show that when Dartmouth has access to class rank info (i.e. when the HS provides it), it accepts the kids who finish first in the class at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than kids who finish second. </p>

<p>That’s quite remarkable considering, at least in my experience, that the 2nd place kids are also very smart and accomplished. There is often only an insignificant hair’s width of difference between the 2nd and the 1st place kids in terms of achievement.</p>

<p>So unless you can determine that there is some mysterious reason why finishing second instead of first in their class really discourages the sals from applying to Dartmouth in the first place, and thus there aren’t very many sals in the applicant pool for Dartmouth pick, the main logical explanation for this acceptance rate imbalance is a strong preference on the part of the college to pick kids who achieved the valedictory honor.</p>

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<p>Of course, by definition in fact. The college obviously cannot exercise its preference for vals if it doesn’t have any class rank information.</p>