If someone is rank one in 9th and 10th then what are their chances to become Val/Sal if their school is getting merged with another school of same caliber?
That answer probably requires a crystal ball, doesn’t it? Who knows what the competition at the other school is like, or even if the student would keep the top spot if the schools weren’t merged. The person who thought he’d be valedictorian in my class (from about middle school onward) ended up around 5th or so.
Here is another thought: What benefit is it to be Val? Are there certain scholarships that you get? Bragging rights? Mostly you get the most benefit out of being in the top 10%.
I agree that other than bragging rights or some scholarships to certain schools, rank 1 is as good as rank 10 for admission’s sake but just wanted to know if Val/saks on CC were ranked 1-2 all four years?
Even if the school didn’t merge, the top students in the class can change a lot after sophomore year, especially if the school uses weighted averages, as most schools don’t offer lots of AP classes until junior year. I’ve never seen any school that cared if you were at the top all 4 years, just in the home stretch. With weighted averages, kids who were in the top early on but didn’t load up on AP classes junior/senior year can fall behind even if they get all A’s.
Many competitive college prep high schools no longer rank at all. The just report deciles to colleges for admissions purposes.
Original question is not as much about colleges caring that you were ranked 1 for all years or last two, it’s about the common pattern, is it common for Val/Sal to rank 1-2 across the board or it’s common for underdogs to overtake in 11-12 year?
In my case, the two highest ranked kids graduated early, so I moved up to the #1 position, luckily!
That depends on the people involved, doesn’t it? What we all have experienced or not-experienced has zero predictive value for you.
As stated above, especially if a school uses weighted GPA for determination, anything can happen. A kid who was #1 in years 1-2, while most students were taking similar courses, could drop if they don’t take as many AP courses as others do, or if they load up too much on AP courses and don’t get as high of grades. Some kids are willing to cede their #1 ranking to take courses that matter to them rather than taking courses just for higher rank.
In my kid’s college prep school, after freshman year there were a ton of kids tied for top rank - all took as many honors courses as were offered, all earned A’s across the boards. Sophomore year the grades spread a bit more, but still a lot at the top. Junior year things changed a lot based on course selection. My kids were top 10, but the low end, because both chose to take art courses (which I heartily endorsed) rather than load up on more AP courses. It’s all going to depend on the specific kids in your specific situation and what their motivations are. Are they looking for the best high school experience possible or the highest GPA possible?
Student is feeling torn between music/debate classes and being valedictorian with elite college acceptances.
I’m not even sure what that means. Elite colleges don’t care much about valedictorians. They reject most of them. I think the admissions officers know that the artificial and often ridiculously stupid distinctions that ranking systems make between the top students don’t mean anything. For instance, at our school, you get a higher GPA if you take study halls than if you take actual classes, and this is true in most schools. Why would a college admissions officer be impressed by that?
What’s this “overtake” stuff? It must suck to be at your HS. Geez, I barely knew my class ranking. Was too busy cranking my classes. Ended up 10th or 12th but at my HYP school.
HS bragging rights mean nothing to college admissions officers or anyone in the real world. It’s nice for grammy to boast about you to her mahjong partners – and the val will be the trivia question at your 30th year HS reunion. Some scholarships might take notice – but that’s a few hundred bucks.
Besides, these – val status and a dollar will get you a soda at McDonalds.
“Student is feeling torn between music/debate classes and being valedictorian with elite college acceptances.”
If student would get enjoyment out of music/debate, he should take them. Why would student desire to be one of those people who just does everything for elite college acceptances?
Besides, who gave the student the erroneous assumption that elite colleges are salivating over valedictorian? They reject plenty of them. It’s not remotely a hook or magic bullet. They know that there is no appreciable difference between the kid in first place and the kid in fifth. It’s all the same.
You say that like they are mutually exclusive. A student can get elite college acceptances and have music/debate classes. On the flip side, a student can be val and get rejected from elite colleges.
FWIW, most schools name vals after college decisions have been made. Many schools don’t have vals/sals. ~Half of US HS’s don’t rank. Spending energy to get val is wasted energy that could have been better utilized elsewhere, IMO.
Yes, you should know the answer from being on CC. Both music and debate serve a purpose in admissions. Starting with, they show a kid can have interests other than just grades and can try things. Just going for val can be empty.
Over the years kid saw many of his mentors getting their names on school’s wall of honor, walking up to the stage and give speeches as Val/Sal , he would like to follow their steps as last hurrah of 12 years of school.
He is equally passionate about getting into colleges of his choice, not because he likes their prestige but because he wants to benefit from their faculty, resources and peers.
Okay, take a breath. Val and Sal depend on the ppl involved
I set my sights on Valedictorian in 6th grade. I fought and clawed and studied to make sure I stayed #1. Was rejected by some places, wait listed at UChicago, and accepted to decent schools and won scholarships.
And I suffered from depression, anorexia, tried to commit suicide, etc.
You can read some of my other posts - I had many other issues that contributed to my ill-health.
The point, though, is that if you don’t want it BADLY - just let it go.
The reason I wanted to be #1 so badly was because I was abused at home and at school and I was going to show all those spoiled brats that I was better and smarter than they were. It was my ultimate revenge.
Who'sLaughingNow?
The most ironic part of all is that I graduated early and surrendered the title of Val.
I wish I could go back and do it all again. That title doesn’t even mean anything now.
Just be sure you aren’t confusing a goal of #1 with the right full qualifications for a top college. Make sure that “passion” for his college choices translates to some effort to learn what they really look for. Too many think this is all about who’s best in their own hs context. It’s more.
Think about it. Those top colleges could fill their classes with valedictorians if they wanted to. But the fact is that they don’t. They are looking for talented, interesting students with potential, not the person who gamed the ranking system the best in high school to come out with a GPA .001 higher than the next student. That means nothing to them. And the proof is right there in front of you if you care to believe facts.
Your student should make the high school experience they want. Think about how they will feel after getting rejected. Will it be "I can’t believe I wasted my time doing X and didn’t get in"or will it be “I did what I wanted to in high school, I got the most out of it that I could, I enjoyed it and I don’t regret one minute of my high school experience”? There are no do-overs.
Valedictorian is rapidly becoming obsolete anyhow as many high schools do away with it–precisely because it encourages students to make decisions which are not in their best educational interest. I don’t know who was the valedictorian of my kid’s class. I do know it wasn’t her and I’m pretty sure that she had the most “prestigious” list of college acceptances in her class. Your student needs to get out of the tiny high school bubble and think about their place in the world. No one cares about valedictorians. To obsess about this is just showing a lack of the kind of broader thinking and engagement that colleges do care about. If you care more about a plaque on a wall somewhere than about pursing the experiences that interest you, you are probably the sort of kid who will end up in that large circular pile of valedictorians.
Worryhurry, the entire totality of your posts suggests that you think the route to college acceptance is through the tippy-top grades and the tippy-top scores, and a “seriousness of purpose” to traditional academics. That may have been the way it worked in your home country. That is not the way it works here. The best advice to this student is to be the best HE he can be, and pursue his interests. If that includes music, great. If that includes debate, great. He should develop himself to be the person he wants to be – NOT twist himself into a pretzel to “please” some admission committee.
I also suspect that the “colleges of his choice” are HIGHLY driven by your culture’s perception that there are only a handful of excellent colleges in the US. Where else would he have gotten that information? Just as a starter, grab the top 40 universities and the top 40 colleges from USNWR. How many of those 80 colleges has he really investigated or thought about? My guess is that it’s the usual suspects - oh, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, blah blah blah - that are his “dream.” Any idiot can “dream” about Harvard. It’s the truly bright person who looks at the full panoply of excellent colleges out there. There is not a single one of the 80 colleges I just suggested he look at that doesn’t have excellent faculty, excellent resources, and smart peers.