<p>At my school they rank based on weighted GPA so basically the top 5 kids or so in a class all have solid 4.0 UW averages but the valedictorian has taken more honors/APS than the salutatorian, etc.</p>
<p>I've had debate so many times and when it comes down to it economics (or physics--whatever field you think this question is part of) isn't developed enough to quantify-beyond-debate the work put into whatever the valedictorian "award" is trying to measure. So there is going to be debate.</p>
<p>Then, of course, there are a few changes everyone seems to agree should be made. In Florida, for instance, everyone seems to agree AP classes should be weighted more heavily than dual enrollment (DE); everyone also seems to agree all semester classes should count as 1 semester of credit (DE can, under certain conditions, count as 2). But even though, not literally everyone can even agree on that!</p>
<p>So, lets consider some philosophical truths. At the end of the day no one at your school is the undisputed best in the world at anything. Even Ed Witten isn't the best in physics in the way Einstein (appeared at least) to be; so,you're always going to have to be happy with who you are, its the only thing that matters (almost, see Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus). And the one thing everyone I know can agree on is this: labels like valedictorian or salutatorian, gifted, "advanced", or sucessful don't mean anything with respect to introspection--you worth can't come from labels, so they don't really matter. At least not at the end of the day, in an idealized world.</p>
<p>But wait, in an idealized world the economists would be able to quantify everything and the rankings would be perfectly precise, right? So then they WOULD determine your life's worth, or some other ranking would... Oy vey!</p>
<p>at my school, the top 10 are the smartest and brightest. They all take APs and such. Since my school is based on a weighted scale, after like #11 or so, the W GPA is under a 4.0</p>
<p>Our school was like that. Our class of 06 was crazy. Class of 03 valedictorian wouldnt have made top 10 in our class of 06. For example, our salutatorian, never made anything less than a 5 in his sophmore and junior years (5s in calc bc, APUSH, AP world hist, AP english lang, AP compsci AB, AP Macro, AP compsci A). This kid also was rank 39/800 freshman year. He jumped to 2 by junior year. He also made all 97s from end of freshman year till senior year (had 1 96 in AP Physics C, the hardest physics class in our school).</p>
<p>Did I mention he was in varsity hockey? And placed 1st place at State in Business Professionals of America State for JAVA Programming and made 9th in Nationals.</p>
<p>He's a god, basically.</p>
<p>In my school anyone with over a 4.0 is considered valedictorian. This means every year we have 10-15 kids that give speeches and prolong the commencement ceremony. This wouldn't be so bad if half of the kids on the stage didn't take blow off classes and get 20's on their ACT's. This is one of my biggest problems with my school!!</p>
<p>Our top 10 last yaer was crazy. Crazy competition. EVERYONE in top 10 got into at least one Ivy League, and we have 2 going to Harvard, 2 to Duke, a couple to UT, and a Rice, and more.</p>
<p>"Our top 10 last yaer was crazy. Crazy competition. EVERYONE in top 10 got into at least one Ivy League, and we have 2 going to Harvard, 2 to Duke, a couple to UT, and a Rice, and more."</p>
<p>Even for a public school of any reasonable size (300+ graduating), that really isn't crazy...</p>
<p>I hate how at my school we don't weight GPAs but still rank our students. Seriously, I think the only person left in our grade with a 4.0 is this girl who takes cooking classes and band all day long.</p>
<p>Mr Payne, we had a graduation class of ~650 students. And I only listed the top 10. There were many other ppl who got into Columbia, etc. through sports scholarships.</p>
<p>The thing that I don't understand about some of these posts is how a valeditorian can take easier classes than other students...at my h.s. every class is given a weight. Calc B.C. and Physics 1,2 (Physics C mechanics and electricty) are weighted 8 and Calc A.B. and Physics 1 (just Physics C mechanics) are weighted 7. Accelerated classes are weighted 6 and regular are 5. Your grade in GPA form (A=4, B=3, etc.) is multiplied by the weight of the course then these values are all added up. The highest value wins. This obviously takes into account both course difficulty and grade. I honestly have no idea how it is possible to have people taking easier courses than others and be valedictorian (dont give me a retarded response about well dee da dee if someone takes calc ab and gets an a and someone takes calc bc and gets a b then the ab wins i know 8x3=24 and 7x4=28 and that 28>24) I'm saying that it isn't THAT hard to get A's in APs. We had 8 out of 550 students tied for valedictorian including me because we all took the hardest classes and had 4.0s.</p>
<p>Our school worked on the normal 4.0 scale, with AP and the two honors courses given a 5.0. Our school ranks, but we don't always know what our rank is. They don't put it on report cards, but we have an awards assembly where people in the top 10% are recognized. We have serious grade inflation because we have lots of AP classes, and live in a college town, so tons of people will take classes up there, and with that college class period they are given a free period for traveling (free periods are otherwise not allowed), which ends up boosting their GPA because it is our of less classes. People cared about being in the top 10% for college reasons, but as long as there were in that top 20, no one cared about the ranking. Our valedictorian deserved it. She is a flat out genius, in all subjects. She didn't take hard classes for the ranking, she took them because she would be bored out of her mind in non AP or non college level.</p>
<p>Simple rules at our local hs: take extra challenging middle school classes, take all the AP classes you can handle, 5.0 A's preferred, dump PE (no extra stinking 4.0, please - take after school activities until 5 or 6 pm), skip required non AP classes as much as possible, don't transfer Algebra I & II or foreign languages from middle school (junior hs) for hs credit - again no crummy 4.0's please. Use every second of your day, 2 minutes for a question in the 3 minutes between classes. Smile, be involved, make things happen. Insist on a quality education even if it is a second rate school (end of summer scheduling), try to get a parent or counselor on your side, more can be better (or not). Never be a pain. Be prepared to sacrifice little things along the way - i.e. extra chances for health & physical tests required for graduation...</p>
<p>Worked like a charm for 11 AP classes, all A's, 0.121 points ahead instead of semestral bingo where +-0.001 usually wins. Top students should try to stand out in <em>some way</em> (state prizes, talent(s), leadership, NMS, or V/S). Val is only one way. Good luck to all. Choose a school you can love or like, not just a name.</p>
<p>At a nearby high school, the #1 kids are playing the game by taking study halls. The game is: take the most honors and AP courses possible--but don't take ANY electives that are only 4.0 A's. It is rare to see a band or choir kid be #1 because music does not offer a weighted A. </p>
<p>So the message is this: take the minimum number of courses that are 4.0, take a study hall over learning anything extra that might hurt the GPA, and schedule PE and health second semester senior year if possible so the GPA is higher for the college apps.</p>
<p>Great lessons . . .</p>
<p>The valedictorian from my high school was definitely "playing by the rules" and then some. She cheated all the time(no teacher ever noticed somehow ?), she took advantage of her pushover teachers, making them change rightful B's to an dishonest A's, on top of that she took very few AP classes, just enough to keep her #1.
I think after about 10th grade people stopped seeing her as "smart" and more as a "stupid cheater". Though, she was very good at getting A's. If I would have used her genius tactics, I could've killed her with my GPA. But it's fine. I did pretty much the best I could until senior year. =p And I was salutatorian. I'm going to my first choice college wooo!!! and she's going to some dumb one, and if she keeps up her ways, I'm sure she'll do terribly. 0=]</p>
<p>Valedictorians generally earn their spot through hard work. There will always be people who cheat or engage in questionable behavior. No one assumes the valedictorian to be the smartest person in the school - or for class rank to be an indicator of intelligence - but there's certainly a correlation.</p>
<p>I always get worked up over the issue of determining the Val.. At our school, the valedictorian oftentimes is the one taking hard classes at school, yet their standardized test scores are bed. For example, this years Val. is goin to Baylor and he took many AP courses at school but did pretty poorly on the acutal exams. The Sal., however, is goin to UPenn and was National Merit, good SAT Score, etc. (the list is really long).</p>
<p>In fact, I brought up this topic to the head of our upper school. I'll be a sophomore in high school next year and the kid who beat me as a freshman is taking easier classes and plans to drop out of Latin because "he doesn't like our teacher"; on the other hand, we all know its just to boost his GPA. After meeting with our administration, I was even more infuriated. They basically said the top students are the one taking the hardest classes and most involved-a very false statement, especially for our overly-competitive class. </p>
<p>I've convinced myself to relax about it; colleges won't mind whether I'm 1, 2, or 5, but that I'm challenging myself as much as possible. </p>
<p>I would appreciate any comments/"warnings" on the mentality I've developed on this topic. Thanks!</p>
<p>At my school, the potential valedictorian knew how to work the system from the start.</p>
<p>Freshman year, he took regular classes like I did, didn't really do anything all that academic. However, the summer of freshman year, he took Algebra II at a summer program and tested into PreCalculus Honors sophomore year, in addition I think he took some community college classes during freshman year and freshman summer, I'm not sure.</p>
<p>Sophomore year, he had two weighted class (PreCalculus Honors and AP Biology) and probably some more community college courses. Sophomore summer, he took three community college classes. He also took two AP exams: AP Biology and Psycho. In addition, he somehow got out of PE, so it really boosted his GPA.</p>
<p>Junior year, I think he was the only one in my class to take 5 weighted courses (AP Calc BC, AP Comp Sci, AP Eng Lang, and AP Physics B) and somehow he tested into AP Spanish. He took 5 AP exams this year. This summer I think he is taking at least 2 community college courses</p>
<p>Senior year: probably a bunch of APs (AP Chem, AP Eng Lit, AP Stat) only classes I am sure of that he is taking other things I am not sure of.</p>
<p>This guy really knew how to work the system, and he got all A's in his classes along with getting 220+ in his PSAT (National Merit) and like 800s in math and bio for SAT II. There are other students at my school that I think are smarter, but who do not know how to work the system so they do not have the chance of becoming valecdictorian.</p>
<p>There are others at my school who know how to work the system, but are not as smart as the potential valecdictorian is so they can't get A's in their classes. People at my school aren't really smart, but if you don't take community college courses you are basically over (3.8 = 70th percentile).</p>
<p>Many of my peers also take community college courses to get requirements out of the way so they can fill up their schedules with APs and Honors courses. . .</p>
<p>Oh, I forgot to mention in my previous post that when you apply for colleges, know one will know who the val. and sal. are-alteast at my school.</p>
<p>This is not the case in my high school.
We had 16 this past year, and a good 75% of them of them had enrolled in 5 or more APs, with the leading Valedictorian doing at much 9 altogether, and dual enrollment.</p>
<p>But, I don't disagree with you.
Being a Vale or an honor Student just means you are "playing by the rules" nowaday.
Because 16 Valedictorians is way too many for one sitting.</p>
<p>If our principal had taken the time to rewrite the guidelines, it would make the position more prestigous.
ie:
- A Valedictorian should have a GPA greater and not equal to 4.0
- A Valedictorian should be someone has enrolled in the most rigorous courses available in the school, with at least 5 APs and multiple honor courses.
- A Valedictorian should be someone whose record is clean, ie: if the student has been caught cheating, then he/she shouldn't be one.</p>
<p>Those rule would of easily eliminated 6-7 of the Valedictorian, dropping them the total Vale to at least 9.
From there, I am sure he can find many other ways to eliminate a few more.</p>
<p>Oh my, this is a DEPRESSING post! It is really supporting what I saw at this year's Honor's Assembly at my D's school. It became clear that they "set up" the Valedectorian very early in the game. It was odd to sit there and see girls get awards when others in the exact same classes had higher grades! The school goes from 7th to 12the grade and it was fairly clear that those that were there from 7th grade had a definite advantage. The AP and Honors classes were all over the place, but I still have no idea how someone gets the Math award for a class when they get a 97 and another girl had a perfect 100..... Is it all such a game? How sad.....</p>