<p>GPA should be a combination of hard work and intelligence. There are plenty of smart people who don’t achieve much (look at the Mensa organization…). </p>
<p>There’s no reason why he wouldn’t deserve the valedictorianship. Watson and Crick, who discovered the model for DNA, had IQ’s around 120. Past a point, IQ is meaningless without motivation. Many Nobel Prize winners succeeded because of extraordinary work ethic.</p>
<p>On topic: 2330 SAT and 3.89 GPA (rank 2/540).</p>
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There is no clear cut result. In the real world, the most intelligent and hard-working people succeed :)</p>
<p>An IQ of 120 is still well about the average.</p>
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You’re forgetting about that other category: the intelligent hard worker.</p>
<p>In the real world, there are very smart people who don’t work hard and wash out. There are also very hard working people who spend years working in coal mines.</p>
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An IQ of 120 is still well above the average.</p>
<p>Okay, you can talk about GPA being a direct result of hard work and intelligence. The situation here is that I am utilizing both to their fullest extents. The most intelligent person I know is the salutatorian, 1 rank behind me. He’s extremely intelligent, but again, he doesn’t work even remotely as hard as me. Why should he deserve my rank? Does he deserve it just because he’s more intelligent than me?</p>
<p>The way you’re talking about my score of 1860 leads me to believe that you think I’m stupid. Really, this score indicates I’m stupid and have no potential to be at or near the top in terms of GPA? I wonder what the people getting 1100s and 1200s are capable of, then. They’re probably best fit to be coal miners, right?</p>
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Yes. The valedictorian should be the student who best accomplishes the goals of education: expanding your mind, building critical thinking, and teaching conceptual thought. Not just the student who works very hard to understand basic ideas.</p>
<p>Ishanz, your personality attests to the fact that you are going far in life, and already have done so. Period. That is all that matters. Everyone needs to relax.</p>
<p>@kameron: Well then, we differ ideologically. It seems your definition of the valedictorian is just a measure and award of efficiency (and inherent intelligence) instead of net effort and final GPA.</p>
<p>Yes, we clearly do have very different interpretations of what grades mean.</p>
<p>To me, an “A” should mean you understand a concept thoroughly. That you know not just <em>how</em> to solve a problem, but <em>why</em> you solve it that way. That, given sufficient time, you could figure out the solution to problems you had never even encountered before.</p>
<p>In fact, students should be <em>rewarded</em> for studying effectively. If all it takes is 5 problems to understand a concept, why should you do 50?</p>
<p>You seem to want grades just to be based on your effort. This culture of an “A for effort” sickens me. It’s rewarding students for simply trying hard and discourages students who actually do things efficiently.</p>
<p>To use an example from the “real” world, which employee would you rather have:
<p>In my defense, number one “can” build a working prototype in 5 hours. Evidently, in my situation, the salutatorian has the capability to take my rank but has not done so because he has not put in enough effort. </p>
<p>And in the real world, I seriously doubt the choices are not so clear cut between those two employees. Compounding that, how many people in the world are like employee number one? Definitely nowhere near a majority. I seriously doubt you need to be a genius to become successful in the real world.</p>
<p>Additionally, I haven’t just put in effort. I’ve achieved as a result of putting in effort: I have a high GPA, I have what I think for me is a respectable SAT score, and I’ve aced 2 AP exams thus far. The “A for effort” culture you speak of makes it sound like I’m the valedictorian simply because I answer all the questions on my tests.</p>
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Sure, but there are plenty of us out there. You’d think that valedictorians would generally be very intelligent.</p>
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Maybe because he values his time and doesn’t want to waste it on meaningless rote memorization and busywork, which it seems like most grades are based on.</p>
<p>2250/3.85 (on a rather liberal A=90-100 etc. scale though)</p>
<p>2110 and a 93.8 uw gpa (dont know what it is on a 4.0 scale)</p>
<p>2220 3.0 unweighted lol</p>
<p>@Detreacy: Similar situation here.</p>
<p>2100 (2120 superscore)/3.05~</p>
<p>I want to erase my freshman year. =(</p>