<p>I was one of three vals at my high school and I knew that, as you said, playing by the rules would get me there.</p>
<p>I carefully planned out all four years and made it.</p>
<p>Isn't that life, though? If you want to be successful, you have to learn the rules and win the game.</p>
<p>I was EXTREMELY lucky. I was ranked 3 for the longest time, but everyone knew that I was in the top 2 and we should have been separated from the rest of the field by a good distance. #2 person just knew how to work the system. Senior year comes along and the top-ranked students pretty much all had to take math classes at UCSD, and we had to sign a contract saying we would take all 3 quarters of math. By the 3rd quarter only 3/6 students kept with the contract (#2 guy backed out of it too). The school ended up moving me up because I took that chance my last quarter of senior year and got an A. I was still theoretically #3 by GPA, but my school finally rewarded people for taking more difficult classes. Luckily my school doesn't have the independent study stuff, but we're limited in AP's (which are mostly humanities).</p>
<p>At my school, grades are weighted, so of course those that take honors and AP courses will be ranked higher. My class's current valedictorian is unbearably smart, however, and deserves the title-- advanced in math, science, english [well, he was in honors but he took the AP test and... probably got a 5 like he did on everything else], and social sciences. It makes a lot of people freak out because he's well-rounded [and amazing at athletics as well] but he's better at everything than everyone else. Before he moved here though, our original valedictorian [now salutatorian] was a silly joke. Not the best or brightest at anything, just the master of padding his gpa. He takes a lot of honors classes, but he takes the easy ones. Yes, there's such a thing as easy honors classes at my school, and they are the only ones he'll take in math and science. </p>
<p>But really, rank doesn't measure anyone's true intelligence at my school at least. The current valedictorian has beaten me out of academic awards by merely half a point and the salutatorian is wayyy behind me in math and science even though I'm ranked about 20th in my class of around 465. </p>
<p>It's just a silly average, it doesn't really say THAT much about you as a person, so why care so much? The actual classes a person takes are far more important in the long run anyway.</p>
<p>At our school, it always just seems to turn out that the val and sal are great all around students, and have taken all APs and are just brilliant kids. But, they are usually not the strongest applicants to ivys and top LACs. The title means virtually nothing to the top schools. No one really cares about it in my school either. It's almost like people try not to be val, like it's not cool or something.</p>
<p>Ever since I found out that i had the second highest GPA for the freshman class, I have been totally freaking out. I've already had my courses planned to the max. I have 6 honors/ap classes 10th grade; 5 IB, 2 AP 11th, and 6 IB 12th. I cant count how many times I've been in my room just planning out how I am gonna beat my "competitor(s)", or the people trying to be #1. The reason I probably freaked out is because I got 4 B+s. Right now I have a 4.7 GPA, but the "val" has a 4.85 w, 4.0 uw. She's taking gym over the summer-so she could have all, 7 honors classes next yr, compared to my 6+P.E. The only way I could beat her is if I got 4/5 A+'s next yr, to bump up my GPA to a 5.0, but who knows what could happen next yr with classes, etc.
I never thought valedictorians would have to go through SO MUCH STRESS!!!!!! Can you believe that I will only have 1 real elective that isnt an honors/IB/AP/state requirement all through high school?</p>
<p>You got a 4.7 with 4 B+s?</p>
<p>I mean, the grades aren't bad at all (i.e. you're insane for worrying about being second in freshman year, etc.), but... what kind of scale does your school use?</p>
<p>Being val or sal isn't just playing by the rulebook, but also finding the loopholes. At my school, rank was determined by weighted GPA (on a 6 pt scale), and classes like PE and health were always 4 pt classes. This led to the game where people tried to take as many APs as possible to negate the effect of required 4 pt classes.</p>
<p>-Taking PE/health/speech in summer school to free up more time to take AP classes during the year (no APs offered in summer school).
-Testing to place out of language classes because the first two years were 5.0.
-Not taking orchestra/choir/theater because they were 5.0 classes, instead taking AP music history for a fine arts credit, even though the class was a complete joke.
-Taking band instead of other fine arts since at least it counted for some PE credit.</p>
<p>It was a lovely system to penalize students in the arts. The top 10 at my school were probably 4.0/4.0, but I graduated behind someone that wasn't a 4.0, even though I was, because I had 4 years of orchestra and she only had a year or two of band and then more APs. This year's val dropped band for a year so he would come out ahead in the end (less competitive class).</p>
<p>Edit: But even though I graduated 9th because of all the games, I'm still at a school that is in the top 3 for my major. It really doesn't matter in the end, as long as you take hard classes and do as well as you can in them and have extracurriculars you enjoy.</p>
<p>dude, don't stress. it's worth it! How is it worth it? No one will be that impressed anyway.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I never thought valedictorians would have to go through SO MUCH STRESS!!!!!! Can you believe that I will only have 1 real elective that isnt an honors/IB/AP/state requirement all through high school?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Valedictorians don't go through so much stress.</p>
<p>Only those who obsessivley try to become valedictorian will.</p>
<p>I think I like my school's system of determining rank in which it is determined by weighted GPA and the GPA is computed by exact points, meaning its not just about getting the 95 A but making sure you get the 98 or 99. That way, there is only one clear-cut valedictorian, but I dunno; Im a little biased since I am number 1 right now. The only flaw in it though is that it kind of makes you grade hoard and obsessed with getting just that one more point.</p>
<p>Unweighted GPA...</p>
<p>4 Valedictorians this year, but they all deserved it (all took fairly hard classes, etc), just made the speech seem a bit weird.</p>
<p>And it's not like Valedictorian matters anyway.</p>
<p>At the end of the year, you just want to hear a damn good speech or really short one and some damn good music.</p>
<p>Taking classes you enjoy/learn something from (good teachers) >>> gaining 5 or 6 spots in your rank</p>
<p>My school also doesn't include self-study for any sort of credit. In fact I think I am the second person in school history to have self-studied for an AP test. </p>
<p>And I really fail to see how "playing by the rules" means taking easy classes for a high GPA.</p>
<p>At my school to negate the effect of that they let you do honors band/chorus/orchestra starting your 2nd year (I did it, but only for my last 2 years of HS). The class of course is a guaranteed A, provided you do the work (districts music and a solo piece in a concert at the end of the year, which half the seniors never show up for lol).</p>
<p>At my school, we weight in a really stupid manner:</p>
<p>98-100 in regulars = 4.8
in honors = 5.8
in AP/Tier 4 = 6.0</p>
<p>Tier 4 is our district's program that lets smart English/Math students take courses two years ahead of the rest of the class.</p>
<p>So the English I took in 7th grade counted for High School credit, even though it was the hardest class I ever took and I was the only one out of 40 kids to make an A all year.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the rest of the kids take Honors English in 9th grade. At my school, almost all honors classes are blowoffs and anyone with half a brain can make a 95+.</p>
<p>The problem is that the difference between honors and AP/Tier 4 is marginal, so most of the people in our top 10 (7 or 8) are not in the AP/Tier 4 classes. They just take English I in 9th grade, make 100s, etc, while I'm sweating it out in AP English, Calculus, etc. </p>
<p>Also, on electives: electives are free 100s at my school. After one year, most of them become honors classes, so that if you take 4 years of Theater, you'd have a 4.8, 5.8, 5.8, and 5.8 assuming you did a little work. This is the equivalent of taking 4 AP classes and averaging like a 94, which is ridiculous.</p>
<p>So yeah, if you know the system at my school, you could easily engineer your way in to the top 10 (out of 1000 students in a class.) Most of my peers that I consider the smartest students in the class graduated in the top 50, but not in the top 10. Every single member of the top 10 attended an in-state public school, with no ambition to leave state or go to a private school (assuming money was not a factor.)</p>
<p>Edit: Also I did independent study at a neighboring school for a class that my district did not offer, but my school can not give credit for anything like that.</p>
<p>So basically, if you do stuff outside of school, you will lose ranks, b/c some one else will stay at home and memorize a textbook.</p>
<p>Edit2: Another problem we have at my school. Often there is one good and one bad teacher for required classes, and if you get stuck with the bad teacher, your GPA takes a hit and theres nothing you can do. It's not as simple as making an A vs a B, b/c we scale completely differently, so making a 93 vs a 96 makes a huge difference, and getting the bad teacher will make this happen. There's almost nothing you can do to avoid it. Some teachers I got were just so bad they would give pop TESTS or if they didn't have enough grades at the six weeks mark, they would just make them up, with absolutely no structure and sometimes days of doing nothing at all (for honors/AP credit) It's not that these classes are difficult, just frustrating, b/c there is nothing you can do to get a good grade even if you know everything about the subject.</p>
<p>Also classes are sort of the same way. It's virtually impossible to get an A in some of the advanced classes (Spanish 4 AP, APUSH) but some other advanced classes are free 100s (CompSci AP, Rhet/Comp AP) and most ppl do not know what to take going into high school.</p>
<p>In my High School the Valedictorian is the highest GPA WEIGHTED. They weigh quite well so you stand no chance to be Valedictorian with a 4.0 UW/W. You need a 4.0W+. :)</p>
<p>The ones who deserve the title get it unlike those lazy people with their regular classes.</p>
<p>We just switched to a percentage grading system, so now people in really basic classes could be the valedictorian. This past year, the guy who was valedictorian since freshman year went straight to third after the first marking period and the girl who became first only took two APs (the guy had taken four). Anyway, for honors classes, we have our percentage multiplied by 1.02, and for APs, 1.04. It used to be that we basically added 8 points (one letter grade), but now the most we can get is 4 with an AP class and a 100%. The change has already made a huge difference in the number of students signing up for honors and AP classes. For instance, this year there were 16 students in AP Economics. Only one signed up for next year. Only five of the twenty honors English students signed up for AP for next year. My graduating class is strange: there's me (male) and at least ten girls after me at the top. I took three APs this year and am taking three next year along with Latin online and my other classes. The girl who is second has one AP and is taking one next year. The girl in third has one and is taking two next year. The second spends almost all her time studying and doing homework (I spend basically none).<br>
Wow...I just realized I was really rambling. Sorry.</p>
<p>But we have not had a male valedictorian since 1995, who was also the last to apply to an Ivy League school (and he went to UPenn).</p>
<p>My school had only one validictorian this year, freshman year at my school is particularly difficult (we have a separate list for scholars who keep As past freshman year, that list had some length). Absolutely brilliant kid though, going to Yale, everybody loved the guy, and our school has an academic divide where no one will forsake APs and honors and still get all As. So it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>My school always has a few valedictorians, and it's based on unweighted GPA (which is actually better for me because I take a VERY tough courseload while taking several performing arts classes as well which brings down my weighted GPA).</p>
<p>But that also means that sometimes the valedictorians are AMAZINGLY hard working, brilliant kids (like a couple this year who had taken great numbers of AP courses and had very difficult schedules) mixed with mediocre students who pulled off a 4.0 with just a couple hard classes here and there.</p>
<p>Eh.</p>
<p>This is why I like weighted GPA's and am glad that my school used them. Sure they make it hard on the colleges to evaluate but they make it harder for slackers to win valedictorian.</p>
<p>Seriously, some of these school districts are retarded. Why doesn't every school use a weighted GPA, and <em>only</em> factor in the core academic classes? That way, taking band/chorus/gym/health/speech doesn't lower your GPA. Summer classes/outside work should not factor into the school GPA.</p>
<p>That's the way our school does it, and it works out fine.</p>