<p>And writer1992 why do you think that is lame? Below is the definition of Valedictory address so I’m hard pressed to understand what was lame about picking someone out of the top 5% to give the address. Explain?</p>
<p>“A closing or farewell statement or address, especially one delivered at graduation exercises”</p>
<p>One of the things about the NY Times article that struck me was a description of the 7 valedictorians at the quoted HS all having perfect A+ averages. My HS back in the dark ages didn’t give A+'s; is this more grade inflation? My D’s HS just had State Honors recognition for the 10 (out of 380) students with 4.0 uw gpa. There is no rank as such and the school refuses to buy into the weighting games, although you can argue that doing only the unweighted causes as many, just different, problems.</p>
<p>We have a named Scholar Award, which is defined as the school’s highest academic award, equal to Valedictorian. There are specific requirements for weighted GPA (3.8) and number of Honors/AP classes taken after freshman year (12). It usualy winds up being roughly the top 10%.</p>
<p>There does seems to be heavy grade inflation going on at some schools. At our high school, it’s noteworthy when the Val finishes without getting a B in something, it’s rare to have a perfect 4.0. My jr daughter is on track but barely got A’s in two classes, the only A given in each one. I see kids with 99 averages here on CC. It’s a very good thing our school ranks because some of our strongest would look perfectly average at other schools.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>That’s the value of class rank. Taken along with other factors (strength of schedule, etc) it can give colleges a more accurate picture of a student academically. Different high schools not only have different grade scales, but different standards for attaining such grades.</p>
<p>It really does not matter if HS ranks or not, colleges calculate it anyway. So, the rank is important even when HS does not rank.</p>