<p>The valedictorian at a neighboring public high school was not particularly brilliant in an original way, but she she worked as hard as anyone in her class. She didn't go out of her way to avoid tough courses, although scheduling problems forced her to drop one of her APs and a 5th year of foreign language. Nor was she the stereotypical grade grubber. Most of her classmates respected her work ethic and lack of pretension. She was adored by teachers for her punctuality, the thoroughness of her homework, her perfect penmanship and otherworldly organizational skills. She was awarded as a junior every academic award offered, including the Rensselaer Medal (RPI) and Bausch and Lomb scholarship (U of Rochester). </p>
<p>Everyone in the high school -- from students to teachers to GC's to administration -- was so enamored of her positives that they didn't recognize the flaws. These included weak standardized tests and average ECs.</p>
<p>Come late March and the admissions decisions began rolling in. Unfortunately only one "fat envelope" in the bunch, from a third tier tech school. RPI? Rejected. University of Rochester? Rejected. Cornell (where all the local vals go)? Rejected. And so on. Eight rejections and only one offer of admittance -- from a school that would have been happy to admit most anyone in the top 30% of the class.</p>
<p>Everyone feels terrible for this girl and it has cast something of a pall over the school. Lesser ranked students who would like to publicly rejoice in their acceptances at Cornell, Chicago, Smith and other highly selective schools have kept silent. Even most of the kids who got into college by the skin of their teeth have been pretty circumspect about their good luck. In another month and a half it could be a very bittersweet and uncomfortable moment when this young lady goes to the podium to deliver her valedictory. Here's hoping that she rises to the occasion.</p>
<p>i feel sorry for her…but, even though she was a hard worker, she was NOT smart…any smart person could figure out that grades are only a small portion of the application.</p>
<p>Same with my school’s valedictorian. While he got more acceptances than rejections, he was rejected by the Ivy League and some other top-tier schools as well. He was a stereotypical grade-grubber with few extracurriculars, though I daresay that he is one of the most well-read people I have ever met, despite his thick Chinese accent.</p>
<p>The best school (rank-wise) that he was admitted into was Boston University. And nope, no Honors program for him either, despite his ridiculously high GPA. The salutatorian got into MIT. The third in line got into Tufts.</p>
<p>our number one is going to our local state school b/c that’s the only place he applied, but he’s really arrogant and obnoxious. he didn’t get any merit scholarships though many ppl got full-rides to our state school with lesser ranks. our number two is going to harvard and our number three is going to yale=) i’m number four, and i’m probably going to brown.</p>
<p>A valedictorian from a neighboring school around here got into some ivies and turned them all down to go to our state school (Rutgers University).</p>
<p>No one in my senior class (in a small town in the South) got into anywhere “amazing” except the valedictorian and salutatorian, Haverford and NYU respectively.</p>
<p>While this didn’t happen to our valedictorian last year (she got into Stanford) similar thing happened to our 2,3, and 4</p>
<p>2-bad essays: still got into rice after being rejected by all the ivies, Olin, Cal Tech, MIT
3-came from a really protective family so didn’t do any ecs:went to state school
4-most of the teachers didn’t like her: went to state school</p>
<p>I can relate. Our Val was rejected from Yale SCEA, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn. In the end his choices were down to Bucknell, Hamilton, and Penn state and he hates all three. I also feel kinda bad for him because I’m nowhere near 1 in my class but I got into better schools.</p>
<p>“Come late March and the admissions decisions began rolling in. Unfortunately only one “fat envelope” in the bunch, from a third tier tech school. RPI? Rejected. University of Rochester? Rejected. Cornell (where all the local vals go)? Rejected. And so on. Eight rejections and only one offer of admittance – from a school that would have been happy to admit most anyone in the top 30% of the class.”</p>
<p>Sounds very much like she’s going to a school that’s appropriate for her talents, and where due to her strong work ethic, she’ll probably graduate near the top of the class. </p>
<p>By the time she graduates, she’ll probably be excited about going there. </p>
<p>Most vals don’t go to top schools. Many even go to community colleges. Many vals feel fortunate to get into their state’s flagship. It’s only on CC and in a relatively small group of school districts in the U.S. where people assume that vals should be going to places like Ivies.</p>
<p>^Yeah, there are about 16,000 high schools in America, and how many people go to Ivy league schools every year? When you consider that some schools (for instance my high school will probably be sending more than a few people to Ivy league schools) send a bunch of people to Ivy league schools, and then a huge percentage of people going to Ivys come from private high schools, most valedictorians don’t go to Ivy league schools or other top schools.</p>
<p>Northstarmom has got it 100% right here. For years, every valedictorian from my high school went to our state’s flagship school and every single one of them was enthralled.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for the val in question, she was rejected from the unofficial “state flagship” also. I’m sure she’ll do fine, but I’m not sure the one school that accepted her was where she belonged – or at least it is not the only place she belonged. I think part of the reason for her predicament was poor counseling. An assumption was made that by virtue of her valedictorian status and her academic awards at least some of the schools on her list were reachable. She had no matches, just reaches and a safety she applied to because she responded to an offer to waive the application fee and fast track her application.</p>
That’s awful. </p>