<p>Being valedictorian is one of things that in order for one person to win, others must lose (unless the school has multiple vals, anyway). So, you can well imagine that if you have a party for a kid who is val, somebody might point out that this party was made possible by another kid’s B. It’s tacky to say so, but it’s the truth. Somebody saying this might morph into a report that the party was held to celebrate the B. It would be like saying the Super Bowl winners were celebrating the other teams fumble that enabled them to win.</p>
<p>^^ Hunt I agree – plus I’m a little suspicious of the second-hand reporting of this tale, along w/ the time line questions frazzle posted (#20).<br>
If this was truly the reason for the party it was presumptuous and premature. Her D could have gotten a B the next quarter opening up a spot for the third in-line student to become the val.</p>
<p>Leave it to CC to analyze…
Kids are current juniors. The incident happened almost a year ago.
To me it is both scary, ridiculous and hilarious at the same time 
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<p>Neither S nor I are going to loose any sleep over this. But we certainly shared a good laugh ! I just thought CC is a crowd that might appreciate someone telling them first hand of such a bizarre event. Thus the title- Can you beat this?</p>
<p>Throw a party for the other kid to congratulate him from beating your son ! Turn the other cheek !</p>
<p>I’d want to throw a party for the kid who GOT the B. Maybe he found something better to be doing with his time rather than obsessing over his GPA…</p>
<p>How big of a school is it? Here is what I hope happens (and this is mean of me with respect to party-throwin’ mama’s D)–some dark horse smartie who sits in the corner and never shares his/her grades and who through all of high school got straight As appears out of the blue and becomes the Val because her D got an A- at some point. Then you can throw a party for him/her! JK but funny to imagine!</p>
<p>That’s what I was going to post, mini. My mom used to tell me, only half-jokingly, that she’d give me $20 if I’d get a B, since I obsessed over getting A+s.</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>I don’t know if it was this way when you were at our HS, but most friends/acquaintances in my graduating class don’t even remember who our val was…much less her speech. Only reason why I remembered who the Sal was because he was a good friend who didn’t take the academic competition stuff that seriously. </p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>Is your son a fan of the pseudo-barbarians from the Capital One commercials? If so…that’s a hint of one possible suggestion he can take from me putting on my “cool younger uncle who’s a bad influence on kids” hat. :D</p>
<p>As I remember, I graduated something like 117th in my class. (But I was the only one who got into my alma mater - off the waiting list - even though six others who applied and were rejected ended up at H and Y). I’m clueless as to the val and sal - I was more interested in the picket line we had outside of graduation protesting the War (Viet Nam that is), and the five graduates who chose that day to burn their draft cards.</p>
<p>sooooo the parents threw an ADULT party after the one student got a B because that opened the door for their student to be Val? That is just weird. </p>
<p>And one B does not leave a wide gap for someone else to sneak into the val spot.</p>
<p>Maybe this is why my high school did away with val/sal hoopla. </p>
<p>That and our graduating class had a total of over 1500 students so… there’s that. Anyone over a 4.0 was considered “val” I think…</p>
<p>IMO, it’s weird that the mom threw a party for her kid at all. Do we know what kiddo thought about this?</p>
<p>Kelowna, sorry to hear this. Some individuals devote more effort to knocking others down than developing their own abilities. Very unfortunate.</p>
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<p>My HS’s graduating class was less than half of yours. However, we did maintain the val and sal tradition…but didn’t rank anyone below them. One big difference was we were graded on the 100 scale rather than the 4.0…so the difference between the val and sal could be as little as ten-thousandth of a point out of 100. For that reason…getting a B would have been far more serious than in the case of the OP S’ high school.</p>
<p>Strange. My HS didn’t post class ranks. It will all be ancient history this summer. No one will care. Just move on- and congrats to your son for graduating with a high rank in HS and going to a college of his choice. Good luck with any/all summer graduation parties if anyone cares to comment on this stuff. Relax and enjoy. Be thankful this doesn’t matter- especially as you and your son will be expanding your horizons far beyond the local HS scene.</p>
<p>My son was never concerned about gpa or class rank et al- or he would have had better grades! He was the smartest, would have had a much higher gpa if grade weighting was done, etc. Students in the know knew how smart he was- and probably assumed his gpa was higher (especially when he became a senior slacker).</p>
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<p>Not only can I not imagine it, I don’t believe it.</p>
<p>I think this mom threw a party, someone overheard her say something unkind and repeated it to the OP as the “theme” of the party.</p>
<p>When someone wants to tell me what another person said about me or my child, I cut them off with a quick, “I don’t want to hear it, thank you.” It’s amazing how much less drama there is once you take yourself out of the gossip loop.</p>
<p>OP here.
An update for those who responded in this thread…</p>
<p>Since I have posted last, we have heard from another person that indeed, there was a party 
I know it is hard to believe, but…</p>
<p>Rankings are out now and DS is #1, despite all…should I throw a party now and invite the mom in question? Just kidding, but thought you would like to know how it all ended up…</p>
<p>Are you really this desperate for attention?</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter, OP.</p>
<p>I hope there was a punishment for getting the B, it could have ruined everything.</p>
<p>Yay! I remember this thread. Please tell me your son is graduating this year. The competition sounds so stressful.</p>