<p>Summa is with highest praise and magna is with great praise.</p>
<p>Oh, ok. I was wondering why when my sister got Summa we were all cheering.</p>
<p>My graduating class of 380 students also had 20 or so valedictorians because they refuse to weight harder classes. I thought it was pretty silly, and I imagine most of the community would too.</p>
<p>But what happened at this year’s graduation was even better: Out of a class of 354 students, 49 students got a plaque that said “top ten percent” on it. </p>
<p>Don’t ask who did the math!</p>
<p>
Did they mean 49 students were ranked 35th or higher in the [standard</a> competition ranking](<a href=“Ranking - Wikipedia”>Ranking - Wikipedia)?</p>
<p>I agree; the if they’re going to designate more than one (or two students), they need to call it something else.</p>
<p>Aren’t there much more than 29 high schools in Oregon?</p>
<p>[List</a> of high schools in Oregon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high_schools_in_Oregon]List”>List of high schools in Oregon - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>If all of these schools had a valedictorian, shouldn’t there be 500+ valedictorians…?</p>
<p>^ Well played. A+</p>
<p>There is a serious ubiquitous issue in the U.S. where educational quality is second to grades. There are no scales for knowledge retention (say what you want about tests), or academic rigor. The absence of those scales leads colleges and people to resort to the GPA scale which many agree is an “inaccurate” measurement of knowledge and essential life skills. GPA is NOT an infallible key to success.</p>
<p>In all honesty I feel bad for most of the valedictorians because many of them skimped out on extracurricular and other AP classes that could potentially “jeopardize” their GPA. High school should be a pivotal event for young adults and GPA can potentially impede the transition.</p>
<p>The upper-level classes (a few of which have lowered my GPA) have proved invaluable and there is no way I would ever trade those for a higher GPA.</p>
<p>What happened to learning retention, branching out, and vocational experience?</p>
<p>Every snowflake is different but special…</p>
<p>“In a school that uses weighted GPA, you end up in a situation where the student who took the same academic classes, but one less elective ends up rank #1, because those electives drag the GPA down. Imagine having a perfect 4.0 u/w but being #2 because you chose to be in the band or chorus… I’ve seen it happen. farther down the rankings, I would argue the involvement in band, chorus, or another elective might be more valuable than a slightly higher spot in the ranking, but not when it comes to #1 vs #2 - and not in places where a certain rank gains you acceptance or scholarships.”</p>
<p>YES this. Freshman year my son took both Band and Chorus. Prior to the start of 9th grade I spoke with his GC about his goal of being a top graduate. The GC made it clear that that probably would not happen if he continued on with 2 music classes, as it makes it impossible to compete with other students that are taking weighted classes instead. Based on that reality it saddens me to say that he dropped both Band and Chorus in 10th grade to pick up an AP and a dual enrollment class with bonus 10 percent weightings. It was a big sacrifice, but he decided it needed to be done to achieve his goals…I continue to feel torn, but at the end of this year his weighted average will be over 100, so even if he were able to get a 100 average in a music class it would actually lower his average…</p>
<p>that is ridiculous!! We had 12+ valedictorians, which is also ridiculous…</p>
<p>In my high school, there were 50 valedictorians. It was just based on if you had a 4.0+ There were no salutatorians. But the person ranked #1 was recognized as being #1</p>
<p>At my school, there were 28 valedictorians…</p>
<p>^^^ But it was also just based on if you had a 4.0</p>
<p>A girl I knew had about a 94 average in NYS after junior year. She was ranked 12/200.</p>
<p>She transferred to a school in SC and they took all of her “A” 's and converted them to 4.0. </p>
<p>She ended up ranked 2/600. Salutatorian. Ridiculous!</p>
<p>My daughter’s school now ranks based only on the four core subjects: Math, Science, Social Studies and English and they weight these according to college prep, Honors or AP. Band or Chorus doesn’t count against you, but doesn’t help either (for rank).</p>
<p>Problems I see are that many students choose different AP or College level Math, Science, and history courses but they count the same, and you could be a world class artist but it’s of no help to your rank, even though you’re taking the art, music, Photography, Computer Science, etc as a class.</p>
<p>Grading systems are different at different countries. New grading system in US has made this possible, now many people will be honored and I think that’s something special.</p>
<p>Perhaps the 29 vals in that article should graduate summa instead…</p>
<p>I can’t remember a year when my high school had only one valedictorian. It was always everyone who had a perfect weighted GPA. During my time there, the number ranged from 2 to 7.
Since it was based on weighted GPA, there was some gaming of the system involved. A girl who was pretty much uniformly recognized as the smartest in our class was salutatorian because she took a non-Honors elective when she could have taken study hall and stayed Val. Nonetheless, using unweighted GPA for rank would have been ridiculous.</p>