<p>That’s exactly like my school. The students who are really competing for top schools are always concerned with what grades and SAT scores everyone else has (while keeping theirs a secret ofcourse), so they can gauge where they are in terms of college admissions. Not only that, they wonder what extracurriculars and volunteer work other people are doing- and ofcourse try to do better. They join all kinds of clubs it’s obvious they are not interested in, and create clubs just to be able to put down founder/president on their application. Some of the top students also engage in questionable actions in order to mantain their high gpas, (skipping school so they can make up a hard test after finding out the answers, begging teachers to increase their grades- and the teachers doing so, BLATANT cheating) and it works.</p>
<p>The only just desserts is that, ironically, the students who get into the best colleges from our school (HYPSM) are not valedictorian/salutatorian or even in the top 10 or top 20. The students who engage in the above behaviors often get screwed over in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>which is funny to me. I’m actually the only sophomore in my class to take the SAT early. And while certainly I tell them, they get jealous. Our val or sal now I believe wants to go to MIT. I’m gonna laugh if he doesn’t get in.</p>
<p>Wow people are so competitive here. My school doesn’t have class ranks and honestly everyone is very supportive of wherever people go to college. Granted the school is ~3200 so it’s not like there are only a few smart kids all going for like 1 spot but I would say my school is probs much more lax than a lot of yours.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank… I don’t know what I would do if we did. It would be so disgustingly competitive, and knowing my probably-<strong><em>ty ranking would make me feel like crap. So for that, I am grateful. I think class rank is a stupid </em></strong>** system that’s basically asking for competition and cattiness, especially among top students. As long as you have a good GPA, it shouldn’t matter how many people’s are higher or lower than yours.</p>
<p>But if it makes you feel any better, I hate my school too. We just had to fill out this senior survey on Naviance that asked ******** questions like “How well do you feel our school has done in preparing you for college?” and I went off and wrote freaking paragraphs and gave them a piece of my mind. It felt soooo good.</p>
<p>At our school, #1 was far ahead enough of the rest where competition for valedictorian became a non-issue, which did a nice job of relieving pressure. Also, it is distinctly divided into the old high rank kids of freshman/sophomore year (who were predominantly English-minded females) to the new high rank kids (who are predominantly math/science-minded males), so there is a sense of cohesion among our current top kids. We’re all buddies. None of the topmost kids grade-grub. They just outmuscle the other kids by having more brainpower and loading up heavier on APs.</p>
<p>The top one-third of kids in my HS are grouped together and isolated beginning in 8th grade. I think this majorly decreases competition. We don’t see anyone else until we’re sophomores, so we’re already friends by the time we’re taking APs, doing our first PSATs (though all top one-thirds take the SAT in 8th grade, and now everyone takes the PSAT in 9th grade as well as 10th and 11th).
Nonetheless, comme mentionn</p>
<p>@Millancad - I had the opportunity of staying long enough for next year’s Senior class speeches. Never before had Student Government been competitive…but this year it was cutthroat. I believe the girl who won had her tires slashed/car vandalized afterward. A portion of one of their speeches was, “I have a 4.6 GPA and I know that doesn’t mean much to you but…” Something in the water indeed o_0</p>
<p>Honestly, I go to a very competetive school with the top math and science students in the district. There is always somebody helping you… no competition.</p>
<p>I dislike my school but for other reasons. But my school isn’t academically competitive, it’s competitive with sports. My school doesn’t rank and practices grade deflation.</p>
<p>we don’t have class rank but we have tons of really smart kids, none of them are stuck up though, because the smartest kids are humble so if kids “below” them were stuck up they’d look like complete losers.</p>
<p>The funny thing is that the grade obsessed people who flip out when they don’t get a 100 on their test and will die if they aren’t ranked 1 constitute about 99% of the people on this website. lol.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank and yet it’s full of grade whores… aka supposedly “smart” people with good grades who would never read a page in their life if it didn’t pertain to some assignment. No one values learning or intellectualism - it’s all about ivies, baby! And yet my very bright (2370) low-achieving (3.55?) unhooked friend got into a top Ivy (Columbia) while all of the overachievers got rejected. Ahh… justice.</p>
I love and hate how smart my school is.</p>