<p>Through a few isolated examples, I'm starting to think that to be a valedictorian now basically means you know how to play by the rulebook.</p>
<p>I read an article posted here before about how there was a near three-way tie for valedictorian at a high school, and one of them came out on top because he self-studied Algebra I his senior year.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who graduated from Walton last year told me he lost his salutatorian status because the #3 in his class did independent study for AP Micro and Macroeconomics.</p>
<p>Ever since my freshman year, and probably even before then, all valedictorians at my high school have carefully planned four-years such that they won't be taking many honors or AP courses. In fact, the valedictorian has never been the one who takes the most APs.</p>
<p>its the opposite at my hs the top 5-10 all take at least 10 aps before graduation and the rest of their classes are honors except for things like pe that they are required to take</p>
<p>Well, it varies. Firstly, for us we run on IB's, not AP. Secondly, of the top 5, only the salutorian took full IB courses, and this year, it's likely our valedictorian won't be full IB either.</p>
<p>I think this varies -- from year to year -- for ANY school.</p>
<p>Last year at my high school (2004-2005), there were four valedictorians. All of them had at least attained AP Scholar, and every one was headed to a top college.</p>
<p>This past year (2005-2006), only one valedictorian out of the three was an AP Scholar (albeit AP Scholar with Distinction), while the other two had taken mostly easy classes, with one or two, or three -- at most -- APs. </p>
<p>I think it would definitely depend on your school, but at mine the valedictorian had about a 4.5-something (after taking 10+ APs), and if you take no APs and end up with a perfect 4.0, you'd only be ranked at about 40 (out of 4 to 5 hundred).</p>
<p>my school is small (100 per class) so teachers know everyone. they form a committee at year's end to holistically determine who the valedictorian should be based on difficulty of schedule, gpa, etc.</p>
<p>our top ten is basically the people who take THE MOST AP classes, and therefore having a higher GPA...cuz our rank is based on weighted GPA. Im guessing the OP's rank is unweighted...</p>
<p>Our school is weighting averages for this reason. The valedictorian was smart, but she took few honors/APs. The salutatorian was in that class all of his own who took all but one AP our school offered, but did independent studies for numerous other AP classes. In addition, he had a perfect SAT and ACT score (1/39 in the entire nation for that test). I'm sure his GPA was at most, maybe a couple tenths of a point away from the valedictorian.</p>
<p>I don't know if this is true at other schools, but to be val. you need to leave early each day- even if you take 12 APs, you CANNOT have any non AP electives. So yeah, dont be an actor or an artist, no do nothing of interest or passion to you. Any elective will pull down that GPA so fast. </p>
<p>I wasn't val because I did Journalism and did an internship at a local TV station. Take a look at this example: I had the exact same grades, courses- a mirror transcript to the val, but he left at 2:00. I went to my credited internship. So, he wins because he went home.</p>
<p>Yeah, the strategy at our school for a higher rank is to load on the AP courses (which gets us an extra grade point), and go a slight bit lax on the elective courses. Later on in my high school career I found out that taking summer school and classes outside of the normal school hours would be detrimental to your GPA (if it's above a 4.0).</p>
<p>Generally, our Valedictorian year-to-year is either the brightest or most deserving, we haven't had any really close races determined by self-study or one measly elective mucking things up.</p>
<p>Yes. It's true in my school. It's unfortunate for a person who gets one B in high school while taking the max AP and Honor courses, lose out on valedicotrian, while the other candidate got all A's with no APs and Honors. It sucks... but its that's how our school does it</p>
<p>Thats why my school got rid of valedictorians altogether. In the end, we know the 2 going to Harvard with 4.8s or whatever would have deserved it. We have 2 salutorians - anyone who wants the position writes their speech in a during-school pull-everyone-out-of-class type thing, and then the administrators read them (the writers are anonymous though) and the best 2 are chosen. I like the system. We also weight our GPAs so that would solve the problem of easy classes versus APs. We also don't have class rank.</p>
<p>i think its sad that people feel the need to plan out their high school careers that way. we only have one chance at high school and god forbid we end up 4th instead of 1st... its really not that big of a deal and it makes me depressed when i see people who will not enjoy their classes or school at all because their only goal in life is to be valedictorian. these people also need to put the world in some perspective and realize that the world is a lot bigger than their high school and its not about being number one its about being your best and enjoying yourself.
sorry for the rant :-)</p>
<p>At my school rank is determined by GPA, which gives an advantage to those who take honors and AP classes. It increasingly seems to me that vals often have to craft their courseload specifically to win.<br>
Two years ago, though, everyone knew the val was a cheater, both teachers and students. The sad part was that she cheated off the salutatorian, who didn't really care about rank. He, a four-yr xc/track runner, scored a 35 on the act and ended up going to vandy and only has to pay a couple thousand a year. She had a twenty-something ACT and went to a state school.
In the end, as long as your rank is "good", it doesn't have to be "the best."</p>
<p>my school doesnt rank or weigh any APs or honors. since people dont know their rank, they are less prone to take easy courses specifically to move up in the ranking -- because they dont even know their ranking. gpa is not the right way to pick a valedictorian anyway. with no weighting system or a weighting system largely in favor of those who take APs (and actually, a lot of APs in my schools have less work than the regular class) it's just pointless. so people should take whatever they enjoy</p>
<p>Our Vals have taken every AP we have (which is only six). You would think that as long as your school weights APs, the Val would be one who had taken the most APs. In our class of 250, a 4.0 in all non-AP classes probably wouldn't break the top 10 (people, not percent). But while we rank kids, at graduation there is no sal or val recognition, and they don't speak. For some reason we shun academic excellence. We have had scandals though for the "student of the year" awards, where the winner last year was a cheerleader who had a 4.0 by taking no AP classes whatsoever.</p>