<p>Good points everyone. I’m the current year val, but I cannot remember last year’s val. I remember the 2005 val. Just goes to show how fleeting and forgetable this is. </p>
<p>The School Dept has a luncheon tomorrow for the top 10 students, their parents and the school administration. That’s cool. </p>
<p>The #2 student is going to MIT (wow) and the #3 student is an NMF(amazing). So there’s lots of good things happening to the best students. Val/GPA is just one thing, not the only thing going on.</p>
<p>Obviously this wouldn’t work in Texas, but I think D’s school has hit on a good system. They recognize the top 5% of weighted and unweighted g.p.a’s and those wanting to speak at graduation submit their speeches and two student speakers are chosen by some sort of committee. A teacher chosen by the students speaks also. They had various problems with the val selection in the past, including course manipulation, so they went to this system. It has removed a lot of the drama surrounding the process and works quite well, IMHO</p>
<p>I’ve seen incredible drama in the race to be valedictorian over the last several years. In our school there is only one, unless there is a tie after rounding to the nearest thousandth of a point. I really don’t see any substantive difference between a student with a 4.199 and one with a 4.2, and I would rather see co-valedictorians when they are that close.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the students in the top group this year are not cut-throat about it. The reason I say “fortunately” is because I think it can get so ugly otherwise. One of my daughter’s best friends will be the valedictorian, and he deserves it. We only weight AP classes (even for transfer students whose former schools weighted honors classes), and I think the young man has taken four APs. My daughter will probably be the salutatorian (it’s determined after 2nd semester grades are reported). She’s taken seven APs and had some B’s along the way. I’m sure she would concur that she could have worked a lot harder in a few of her classes and earned all A’s, but it would have been at the expense of spending as much time as she has devoted to sports, musical theater, piano practice, some 300 hours preparing two national award winning research projects, and a whole slate of other meaningful activities (MUN, music festivals, leadership conferences, Senate youth program, athletic tournaments, etc.) that took her out of school for weeks at a time–not to mention an active social life! She’s had a wonderfully satisfying high school experience and wouldn’t trade any of it for a higher class rank.</p>
<p>Three of my daughter’s other close friends make up the rest of the top five in her class, and if one of them ends up in the salutatorian spot instead, they will all celebrate the achievement of whoever it is. The attitudes described by SoozieVT sound very similar to what I see in my daughter’s class, and I’m really glad it is like that.</p>
<p>Sure, awarding a few dozens valedictorians is such a swell idea! But why stop at every student who earns a 4.00 and not give a valedictorian award to everyone who graduates? The world is such a better place when we remove all signs of competition, and especially anything that might be construed as rewarding excellence. </p>
<p>With all the dumbing down of our system --but an uncanny preservation of self esteem-- how can anyone be surprised when the US high school students are being left in the dust by students from Iceland, Lithuania or Slovenia? Of course, doesn’t our society adore the YMCA award ceremonies where every 5 year old ponytailed aspiring Mia Hamm gets a three feet tall MVP engraved trophy! </p>
<p>The word valedictorian should mean something … </p>
<p>I like your system Reflectivemom. It would have worked for my poor sister in law who had the same course load as the val, but also took orchestra a non-honors course which then reduced her average GPA. Twenty five years later and it still irks her! We have a 100 point grading system, which with weighting could theoretically go up to 110. (Can’t really since there are a couple of ninth grade required courses that aren’t offered with honors.) So far there’s never been more than one val - they generally have GPAs of 104 to 105.</p>
<p>For those who assail the valedictorian “race”, how do y’all feel about Homecoming Queen (not Queens) or MVP (not MVP’s) or Outstanding Soloist? </p>
<p>Or how about putting a cash award with those? </p>
<p>Or how about taking it to college? How about val/sal there?</p>
<p>Or how about the cash (and other) prizes many colleges give out to the Finest English Student, or Finest Freshman English student? This happens in high schools AND it happens in colleges. Many times there are endowed named “prizes”. (“The Trump Award for Best Senior Project in Hairstyling”)</p>
<p>Or The Prize for Excellence in First Year Biology , just for example . </p>
<p>Many times there is only one and there is no written criteria to most of the ones I’ve seen. Do your feelings remain the same? </p>
<p>Or when the Bio prof writes a rec for med school that says “X is the Number #1 Bio student we have had since 2001.”? (Well, if your kid applies to the same med school and is a bio major at the same LAC, well…)</p>
<p>Are these designations of “top performer in this limited sphere” any more valid? Or should they be eliminated also? I don’t think that’s such a good idea.</p>
<p>We need to reward excellence when we see it.</p>
<p>Sorry to disappoint you, Bobby Charlton, but I was not being silly at all. For the record, I believe that IF a school decides to nominate a valedictorian, the decision to have 28 or 45 of them is utterly ridiculous. If there is a need to recognize a whole bunch of students, neme it something else: platinum club or whatever suits your fancy or imagination! </p>
<p>For most of the world, at least the anglo-saxon one, the term valedictorian DOES mean something, and that should not be a watered down ego-building exercise in futility.</p>
<p>Boy, I don’t think our hs even HAS a Homecoming king or queen. What would they be excellent at? I’m not sure we have Homecoming at all. Vermont can barely field candidates for the Miss America pageant–no one wants to do it. In fact, a teacher at my son’s hs is a recent Miss Vermont–she advises for the yearbook and it’s full of typos.</p>
<p>bethie, then ignore that one as it obviously isn’t a concern in Vermont. For the record, I wonder what criteria the Homecoming Queen is selected by , too. </p>
<p>Do you have an opinion on the others, where one student is rewarded and recognized over all others in a specific area? And if you approve of one, how is that one better than a well thought out Val race over 4 years?</p>
<p>Our High School administration identifies the top ten students in the class using weighted GPA’s for recognition at the time of Graduation, but otherwise does not rank. They do identify the Valedictorian and Salutatorian based on GPA.</p>
<p>Our High School’s Year Book has the usual pictures of kids voted by the members of the Senior Class “Most (fill in the Blank)” and the have a picture of the top boy and top girl and listing 3 or 4 more of the next highest vote getters in each category.</p>
<p>For the “Most Intelligent”, in voting that was conducted in the Fall of Senior Year, months before the actual determination by the administration, the senior class selected as “Most Intelligent”, the students that became the Valedictorian and the Salutatorian.</p>
<p>I thought that was pretty neat, that the kids knew their peers so well. :)</p>
<p>“We need to reward excellence when we see it”</p>
<p>WE did 7 times for one class and 6 for the other. </p>
<p>How did we fail to reward excellence? All of these kids went on with alot of scholarhsip dollars in their pockets. Would it have been better if only one got all the money? </p>
<p>There’s a difference between rewarding excellence and picking a #1. It’s like statistics, fun with numbers, you can create any arguement you want with stats, it doesn’t make it correct in all ways. If 7 kids meet the criteria, 7 kids are vals, if one does, one is val. A standard of excellence was set and met. </p>
<p>Show me where other than for wee wee rights that the other 6 kids or 5 kids in my D’s case are any less than my kids? These other kids did what was required to meet excellence.</p>
<p>“IF a school decides to nominate a valedictorian, the decision to have 28 or 45 of them is utterly ridiculous”</p>
<p>If a school sets a standard for Val at the start of the year and at the end of the year 28 or 45 have met that standard are you suggesting they change the rules at the last momment to fit neatly into your little box of ideas? </p>
<p>Ask an adult about working for companies that constantly change the rules for bonuses or raises because too many qualify. If your company puts out the requirements in Jan for recognition, do they have a right to change them in December because more than one person met them? </p>
<p>Which is a crappier way to go? Reward those who’ve made the mark or change the mark to award fewer people? </p>
<p>Opie, I wasn’t just addressing y’all. You have vals . A poor procedure for selecting them IMO, but still …you have vals decided by a predetermined formula . I have no problem with it except I think it waters down the accomplishment (but not as much as the 28 or 45 vals does) , and as I’ve said -Texas doesn’t have ties. I’m mostly talking to those who want it eliminated. What else should be eliminated that is like the val race? Aren’t these other things just as bad?</p>
<p>I guess the Miss America thing involves “whoever shows up”, not to slight this teacher at all, it just isn’t a Vermont-y thing we care about much. She wasn’t picked for her editing skills, but we wouldn’t expect that, would we.</p>
<p>Your daughter has obviously deserved every honor she’s ever gotten. I think val-sal loses meaning when nothing is weighted or when 20-40 students are so designated. I also don’t like the idea of kids worrying themselves sick over
it or forgoing a social life. Again, this is not about your daughter who sounds happily driven and social enough.</p>
<p>The other awards I’ll hear about at convocation next month and will report back. I know they mention National Merit and RPI gives a big scholarship to whichever student the school nominates as tops in science. I agree that rewarding excellence is a good thing.</p>
<p>If a school sets a standard for Val at the start of the year and at the end of the year 28 or 45 have met that standard are you suggesting they change the rules at the last momment to fit neatly into your little box of ideas? </p>
<p>I believe that post above was for my good friend the boy wonder, but hey- I’m with you on that part, Opie. Can’t change the track after the race has started. Not fair by a long ways.</p>
<p>Thank you, bunches. That’s dang nice to hear but really this isn’t about her. She and her #2 were very cooperative, very friendly , very helpful to each other and in fact had a great relationship. He’s a wonderful kid. A Princeton acceptee who turned it down for a full ride to a Top 100 uni. But they were both competing to see who could stretch themselves the furthest in this specific arena. They both moved the bar into uncharted territory. That’s what healthy competition is. He gained from having somebody to chase. She gained from having someone chasing her. Nobody loses. He gained and she gained. Malignant competition? Who would be in favor of that?</p>
<p>I’d just say to give it a different name. To me val means “the one top performer”. Having a whole slew of people suggests a different name or methodology be chosen.</p>
<p>So IT WAS YOU GUYS that screwed up college bowl games!!! </p>
<p>Now who cares about 29 other bowl games? Do you know much extra housework is expected of me now??? “there’s only one game that matters, fix the gutters”… thanks. </p>
<p>I don’t think Vals should be eliminated, but lay it out for students up front.
The biggest thing we as adults can or should live by is our word.
If 29 can be perfect, I really have no problem with that, but hey I’m a soccer and rugby guy, so I guess I could be considered a bit of a commie in my views. </p>
<p>Most of the worlds greatest accomplishments took more than one guy/gal to happen. If your HS has 29 4.0 kids that are good students…why worry??</p>
<p>“I believe that post above was for my good friend the boy wonder, but hey- I’m with you on that part, Opie. Can’t change the track after the race has started. Not fair by a long ways.”</p>
<p>yea, it was for the second coming of Pele. You and your kin however, I can’t forgive for opening up all those weekends in Decemeber… National Champion???</p>
<p>Do you realize you’ve forever taken away my reasoning with my wife for watching Ackron vs. Southern Florida? "Hon, this could decide the national championship, I’ll get the xxxx later… " Suddenly all but one day are freed up. dam.</p>
</p>
For the record, I wonder what criteria the Homecoming Queen is selected by , too. </p>