<p>“Twenty-nine high school seniors in Oregon will be graduating as valedictorians! A change to the grading system allowed more students to become eligible. But this is the last year more than one student will claim the top spot.” …</p>
<p>If there’s more than one val it kind of defeats the purpose. It seems like it only belongs in small schools. Our school has classes that range from 900-1100 students and the school eliminated class ranking and valedictorian status since there were dozens of kids with perfect unweighted GPAs and at least 5-10 that tied in weighted GPA.</p>
<p>You guys in the USA have a huge problem with grade inflation. In Canada, provincial averages are curved to 65% and there is never more than one valedictorian. It’s even possible to be valedictorian with a 90-93% average. In the USA, what do you need? A 5.0 GPA and a 105% average? What are you guys doing lol.</p>
<p>@muaythaiguy: Alberta may very well curve provincial averages to 65% but not Quebec (Alberta and Quebec being the two hardest graders in Canada, in that order), but both provinces’ high schools can have valedictorians with 90-93% averages. As far as Quebec high schools are concerned, only the ministerial exams are curved province-wide, and, even so, it’s curved to 74%.</p>
<p>Plus it’s not everywhere in the US that is so inflated that a 4.0 unweighted amounts to a 95% average…</p>
<p>As an Oregonian myself, and as one of two salutatorians behind eight valedictorians, this situation (though more extreme) sounds like one my school has every year. My school does not weight classes for GPA; thus normally only about half of our valedictorians actually take difficult classes throughout high school while the other half don’t. As long as one gets a 4.0, they are essentially a valedictorian.</p>
<p>“Anyone still wonders why the top colleges reject so many vals/sals/4.0s every year?”</p>
<p>Because they have more applicants than they can accept, and in any case most of their allure is in their selectivity. Unless the population drops, it’s always going to be that way.</p>
<p>“the true above average is being treated as below average.”</p>
<p>^
Well, duh. It was a rhetorical question and I was trying to say that tons of qualified people would still be rejected even if there weren’t so many valedictorians.</p>
<p>Because of the inflation of grades, number of vals, various awards, glowing recommendations, etc, adcoms have to discount many of these crendtaisl in their evaluations of applicants, even when a partcular applicant is in fact truly outstanding. Such unintended collateral damage is what I meant “the true above average is being treated as below average.”</p>