Valedictorians that go to community college

schrizto · 11-06-2009, 08:36 AM

I found a list of valedictorians and salutatorians in some county and decided to read through them to see where they decided to go... and I saw there were valedictorians that went to community college. WHY? I was going to post a link but it's kind of mean.

bernier93 · 11-06-2009, 09:02 AM

Because that's were they want to go.
Because they can't afford Harvard or Yale or any of the good schools.
Because it doesn't really matter where you go to college as long as you learn what you want to.
Because maybe they want to be a mechanic and you can't do that at Harvard.

schrizto · 11-06-2009, 09:11 AM

So before you get so defensive, I'll be honest here, I don't think anyone's dream school is ever a community college. There's isn't much student life at a CC compared to a university. And if you happen to get into a school the caliber of Harvard and Yale and are low income, the financial aid is excellent.

schrizto · 11-06-2009, 09:27 AM

And also, of course there may be that occurrence where the brilliant val aspires to a career that requires little formal education, but in the link that I found it also lists the career goals of these students and some of them are careers that do need at least a college degree.

applicannot · 11-06-2009, 09:42 AM

Valedictorians from my school are usually only College Park (in state) material. I've never known a valedictorian to go out of state.

Wait! We had a valedictorian go to Temple in 02.

R124687 · 11-06-2009, 09:47 AM

I'll add that a valedictorian from a school of ... let's say 30 kids per class... small rural school - no APs, not many advanced offerings, not known for providing much of an education...

MIGHT not have even placed in the top...25% of a larger school that offers a "better" education to its students and therefore produces more well prepared graduates. That's not always true, of course...there are stellar students everywhere. But this CAN and DOES happen. I can name MANY schools in my D's immediate area that have little or no APs, who produce zero to few NMFs, for example. Then I can name nearby schools that produce 37 NMFs in one year. The top ... 30-40 at THAT school are probably pretty well prepared for college. The other school? Where a FACS class counts the same as AP Calculus in the GPA calculation...might have a valedictorian who isn't anywhere near as prepared.

In addition...I know of schools who, if the GPA is "tied" at the end of the year...award valedictorian status to MANY (and I don't mean 2-3-4) students. So, this supposed "valedictorian" might be #20 in their class. (Yep..20!), regardless of class size.

Also - they might just be going for a bunch of quick and easy credits...THEN applying to a "better" college the next year. Or maybe they were silly in their applications, lacked proper guidance, didn't understand their status didn't guarantee them a spot at a top school and only applied to "reaches". Didn't get in and had to take a fallback position for a year and try again to apply the next year.

The top 10% at my D's large public school all rank ABOVE an A-. So...pushing an unweighted straight A average are as many as 70 students. And it's NOT a school that is guilty of grade inflation...far from it. It's just VERY competitive. Top 10% cut off hovers about...4.3 to 4.4 weighted.

So..."valedictorian" doesn't always mean what we initially think it does. Valedictorian at a big/good school is a major accomplishment. Valedictorian at a school who SHARES the title, and/or at a small/non-challenging school is not always the same thing.

My niece was third in her large class. They offered her the status of shared valedictorian. She declined, because that's ridiculous. Why HAVE the title if the definition is skewed. She was told, by one college, that her "A" at her public school did not mean the same thing to a college admissions counselor than an "A" at a well respected private school. And that's right. It is NOT the same education. Not to say she/they might not have been able to ALSO earn that A at the private school...but, no one can know that without proof of course. Because plenty of those kids could NOT have earned that A at the private school.

theviolinist · 11-06-2009, 09:53 AM

Here's a situation to think about. I'm not a valedictorian (I was home schooled so there wasn't any opportunity lol) but I was really serious during high school - was a NM semifinalist, and took community college courses during high school. Well, by the end of the summer of 11th grade, I had 23 credits of cc courses under my belt, and I was starting to get sick of high school especially considering I had placed into college English and had finished calc. Plus, if I ended up going to one of the top private schools, they wouldn't accept the cc credit I had already done - it would look good on my app, sure, but it almost certainly wouldn't transfer.

However. I live in VA, and UVA has this guaranteed admissions thing with the VA cc system - not only do your credits transfer, but you are guaranteed to get in. Sure, I probably could have gotten into UVA the normal way, but I was practically halfway done with my associate's, and while I admit that it was a hard decision to make because of the social life aspects, I figured that I wasn't going to spend thousands more just to socialize. I decided to skip my senior year and go to cc instead. This is my first full-time semester, and I'm actually having a great time at cc. Yeah, there are a lot of deadbeat people, but I've found some friends who are fun and intelligent, and it's a really interesting experience to go to school with people who are for the most part not rich and spoiled. Gives you a different perspective on life, in a way. Plus, the courses are challenging but they're not hyper-competitive, so it gives you time to think about what you're learning instead of having to cram everything and feel all stressed.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that anyone who doesn't go to a cc is stupid and is being wasteful - there are many, many good reasons for going straight to a four-year school besides better parties. Plus I know that my cc is very large and diverse, while many cc's are small and sorta like 13th grade. So I don't judge anybody else's college decision, but I wish people wouldn't judge mine either

jamesford · 11-06-2009, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Because they can't afford Harvard or Yale or any of the good schools.

Students whose parents make less than 60k a year get free tuition and room from many of those schools.

Quote:

Because it doesn't really matter where you go to college as long as you learn what you want to.

Sorry, this is simply not true.

Quote:

Because maybe they want to be a mechanic and you can't do that at Harvard.

Your college degree doesn't necessarily determine the careers that are open to you.

Any school that ranks, regardless of how shoddy it is, will have a valedictorian. Maybe the students' parents never pushed him/her to aspire beyond community college. Maybe the GC had no idea what he/she was doing.

sg12 · 11-06-2009, 03:19 PM

The only reasonable explanation for this is that they want to go to a State uni with an agreement with the CCs or they were not quite good enough to make the top schools with excellent fin aid.

PEQXC2012 · 11-06-2009, 03:45 PM

My cousin was the valedictorian of his class of 7 in Colorado and barely broke 1500 on his SAT.. (He had close to a 4.0 GPA though, but no advanced/honor/ap classes were offered.. it was a school for music mainly)

He probably would have been bottom 50% for sure at our school

^_^ v_v · 11-06-2009, 05:01 PM

my middle school had a very small high school, and this guy became valedictorian because he was the only one in our senior class

he went to our local fourth-tier state school, probably not much better than a CC after all.

Secret Asian Man · 11-06-2009, 07:20 PM

Our valedictorians usually end up at UNC or NC State, and we're a pretty decent high school in a pretty affluent part of NC. Valedictorians at schools in rural North Carolina usually end up at lower-ranked schools.

Not all valedictorians get into Harvard, etc.

diontechristmas · 11-07-2009, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Wait! We had a valedictorian go to Temple in 02.

We have several very high achieving vals and sals here at Temple, many of whom passed on schools like Penn, Tufts, Cornell, WashU, NYU, etc.

MikeFos123 · 11-07-2009, 04:49 AM

We had 7 valedictorians last year! 7! It's called only having 2 AP classes!

The highest SAT score of the 7? 1520/2400!

Millancad · 11-07-2009, 11:44 AM

My HS had 7 valedictorians the first year I went there. It was a long time ago, so I don't remember and probably never learned where each went, but one went to Yale and another to USC. When we had 7, my school had the most AP classes in the country.
This year, we have 5. The highest ACT score I know for them is a 35, but there's probably a 36, and I only know the sal's SAT score, which was a 2390.