<p>I definately agree with wonwon. In fact, the student who beat me this past year (freshmen year) was caught cheating off my and another girl's test in seventh grade! I go to a private school; I'm surprised they didn't take that into consideration before announcing the top student last year. We only have one vale every year though.</p>
<p>My daughter's competitive high school has a unique way of designating "valedictorian": APs are on 5.0 scale, honors are 4.5, and regular courses are 4. Any student who has at least a 4.35 average is a valedictorian --- EXCEPT if a student gets ANY Bs, he/she cannot be valedictorian. Why weight, then? We had 8 Vs this year. Some students had to watch their peers be honored as valedictorian when they actually had a higher GPA than some of the valedictorians! It shouldn't matter, but it did this year for one young man --- he had one of the highest GPAs but had a B. While the school doesn't rank (theoretically), when a selective college pressed them about his valedictorian status, the high school told them he wasn't a V. Unfortunately, another student from this same high school was also competing for the same scholarship --- had a lower GPA/easier course load --- but was a V. The better student did not get the scholarship, the lesser student did. Maybe this wasn't really the reason, but it seemed to be based on the college's responses to the "loser" student's inquiries. Of course, who needs that college ... but it points out the idiocy of the whole "game."</p>
<p>at my school, to be the val you basically need to be full IB. Out of the top 10, 9 are full IB, #8 being the only one that isnt. If you take a non-challenging schedule, you have no chance because of the ridiculous weighting + grade inflation in AP/IB classes. This helped me, but I dont know how some of you are saying that the val at your school didnt take hard classes.</p>
<p>Many times - I think Valedictorian goes to the one that is the least involved during the school year. I try to do too many things and take too many top level classes during the year - consequentely I get VERY little sleep (we're talking 3-4 hours a night in the bad weeks, and yes I am very productive). But when you're trying to get that much in, you can't perform as well on tests. Even if you had indeed studied more hours than any of your class mates, your exhausted mind has no capacity to retain the information. So while you should be able to get the A from your studying, you get a B or a B+. </p>
<p>Valedictorian at my school is all about time management, work ethic, and EC involvement.</p>
<p>Fabulous, now I'm afraid for myself. Everyone expects me to be a shoe-in for Val because I've taken more AP/Honors than anyone else, but next year they are expanding to 7 classes so people will be taking AP as their 7th block, but I can't because I've already taken them all. Plus, I'm doing UC Berkeley's ATDP this summer, which gets added to your high school transcript, but I don't know whether or not I'll receive an extra grade point for it (it's "reccommended"). It's a small school (150 or so per class) so the faculty know me, and I assume they'll keep me as Val even if somehow (tho dubious) someone ends up with a higher GPA than me -- it's obvious who's done more work, and should be accounted for as such!</p>
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Early Release
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.
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<p>The same thing happened here - the val went home a class period early and our son (who ended up being sal) stayed for Leadership class. The two had the same core courses, same APs, with all A's all the way through.</p>
<p>I hate to sound horrible here....but I'm sure there is something that set the valedictorian from the salutatorian in this situation, not the leadership class.</p>
<p>lol... i def have worked the system and milked it for all it is worth...</p>
<p>1) Watch the courses offered and avoid regular courses like the plauge, limit them to requirements/foreign language/pe....I have only taken 4.5 so far... my second year of Spanish (my 1st was in middle school and was weighted Pre-IB, which is honors), 1.5 credits of PE (.5 of which was taken online to make room), 1 career research (required freshman course) 2nd year of pre-med (1st year was taken in middle school, and was weighted honors)....</p>
<p>2) Take advantage of any distrcit policies regarding grade forgiveness... I was getting a C in AP calc last year, but i had never gotten a C before, so i purposely got a D,and dropped it, took it's AP WEIGHTED equivalent at the community college, got an A, and got my D wiped off of my transcript</p>
<p>3) take the hardest classes ever... i've taken all honors (-4.5 reg) + 5.5 AP weighted courses... and have received/earned 11 Bs... but, because of the rigor, my weighted GPA is higher than all but one, our VAL, whose str8 As with mostly honors and 3 APs is ahead of me by less than a hundreth....</p>
<p>4) take teacher aide, and ask for it to count as community service, i took 1 period (2 for the 2nd semester after i dropped calc) , and although i was temporarily given an A, at the end of the scool year, it was changed to Pass/Fail, and I was given community service hours galore... 2 birds with one stone</p>
<p>5) if there are any art/vocational requirements in your state (like my florida) take them at a community college, it's quicker, easier, and it's weighted honors.... (although i didnt do this one, cause i took 3 years of pre-med)</p>
<p>add more steps to this... i didn't necessarily do this for the VAL/SAL competition, but more for preperation for college admission time... they always want the hardest classes, etc... so, yeah....</p>
<p>They removed the position of Valedictorian/Sal. at our school, for the reasons mentioned on this thread. They're debating getting rid of ranking because the conflict still persists with rankings in place. Our number 1 hasn't worked the system, but the number two has worked the system ad nauseam and cheated hsi way through every honors/AP class possible. He even cheated in freshman health!</p>
<p>man survival of the fittest. the real world isnt all nice. fall asleep and u get screwed so props to the people that work to achieve.</p>
<p>i was valedictorian and my friend was salutatorian. we both took the most AP classes in the school and we both dropped our lunches our sophomore year to take more honors courses.</p>
<p>but then again, all schools are different</p>
<p>that's sad...no lunch....</p>
<p>what is sad is people that have no life whatsoever...at the end come to realize they havent lived life deliberatly. maybe some people should read some thoreau or move to the woods themselves. ic people taking so many things to the extremes. aka...no lunch....i admire determination but really after u go to college hs doesnt mean shet. im going to a prestigious college, once ur here buddy that doesnt mean anythign.</p>
<p>Why do y'all think it's okay to skip meals? I've always wondered how people can just go without food? Be humans; not robots.</p>
<p>School food = teh suck. I got by fine some days eating a large breakfast and eating as soon as I got home compared to lousy unnutritious cafeteria food. </p>
<p>Oh, and of course, eating during class makes the period before lunch a lot happier.</p>
<p>I ended up finessing the system by taking the highest percentage of AP/Honors courses that I could. Since 10th grade, the only non extra point classes I took were 2 years of English and the mandatory religion electives (2 semesters total) for my school. I didnt make valedictorian though, as I am an A-/B+ student, not an A+ student, but if the current val had my schedule he wouldve been a bit higher up on the numerical scale.</p>
<p>Being valedictorian isn't all that important in comparison to like courses took.</p>
<p>I hate when people say they'd have a higher grade than the valedictorian. While this is may be true, it isn't, obviously evident when one looks at the ranks.</p>
<p>Maybe the valedictorians that "play by the rules" is actually smart, and realizes you don't have to kill yourself with AP classes.</p>
<p>Yes, Glucose - the student who took fewer courses had a higher GPA (one fewer non-weighted elective credit) and was therefore the val.</p>
<p>It seems that the "right" thing to do would be for a school to require students seeking val/sal status to be enrolled in a full schedule of courses for all four years.</p>
<p>yeah. The hard-working students don't get the credit, the ones with the highest PERCENTAGE do. So while I might have a 98% and a 4.2 (APs) and a much harder work load, the 99% but 3.9 Regular-classes student gets the valedictorian...</p>
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The same thing happened here - the val went home a class period early and our son (who ended up being sal) stayed for Leadership class. The two had the same core courses, same APs, with all A's all the way through.
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I hate to sound horrible here....but I'm sure there is something that set the valedictorian from the salutatorian in this situation, not the leadership class.
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<p>Um, I don't see how anything besides the leadership class set apart the two people, if they had the eaxact same grades and took the exact same classes, except for the leadership class.</p>