Does your HS have a senior recognition/awards night?

Parent Cafe
1

I’m really curious what this is like at other high schools.

Our HS offers what I consider to be a farce of an awards night. They recognize a large number of students for a lot of little awards, while full ride scholarships, national awards won for something the student did on their own, outside scholarships -
even if they come with extra money for the school - etc. are not recognized at all. To the point where several kids graduating at the top of the class will not be recognized at all (one of whom got into 2 or 3 Ivies.) My high achiever is getting an honorable mention for an art show and that’s it.

The official policy now is “due to the time and program constraints of Senior Rec Night, we are only able to feature scholarships from internal school groups, local community organizations, military academies, and those named in honor of XX students who have passed away.” The students who win large scholarships don’t apply for these low money local scholarships because they don’t need them, but won’t receive any recognition for their big scholarships.

So the same students who win the PTO sponsored awards will win the little scholarships, and get called up multiple times. The top student in each subject area is determined by tests in each subject, administered after school. A lot of the top students have a “screw this” attitude towards those tests, and the person who is recognized as top is quite likely not someone who performed consistently well throughout the school year.

By pure accident, I found out I’m not the only parent who has challenged the school over this and I think there’s energy to try to force a change which is why I’m looking to see how others do it. I’ve already pointed out to the administration that by only publicizing these little awards, they’re sending the message to the families in the district that these are the only awards students are winning. They’re missing a huge opportunity to communicate just how successful the senior class really is. (Their response indicates they think these little awards are actually a big deal). One point I haven’t raised, but I truly believe, is that the way they do things causes students and parents to misjudge their ability to get into reach colleges. We saw it a lot this year with students who had won lots of PTO type awards during high school applying to the HPYSM+ schools and not getting in to any of them. They have no idea what truly outsanding things previous students or their fellow classmates have done.

There has to be a better way.

2

We have one tonight for our senior D, and one tomorrow during the day for junior D. I have no idea what to expect.

The honors night in middle school was a bit of a farce-mostly teachers giving rando awards to their favorite pets. So, I’m hoping this one will be better but I’m reserving judgment or opinion (esp. to the kids), until I see it.

Maybe it will be nice.

3

Our high school passes out so many awards they actually have multiple occasions. I’ve heard of schools announcing “scholarship” money awards that are really need based awards. I think it’s fine for schools to limit the sort of outside awards mentioned. Our school did the junior book awards, the RPI medal and maybe a handful of other outside ones. (No AP awards, no National Merit stuff - that got announced in newsletters earlier in the year.) My older son I think got a math award and maybe one for being in the top 25 students. All those students came up and they reeled off their GPA, some of their accomplishments and where they were going to college. He was in the top 2% of his class. The 6% guy got nothing as a senior, but did get one of the book awards the year before.

4

Son17 was invited to attend a ceremony tonight at our school. I seriously have no idea why. He is a nice kid with decent grades, but certainly not top award winning stats. I guess we’ll find out. I’m not sure if they have awards nights for other grades though, first time son17 has been invited.

5

My D’d HS has a school assembly where they hand out awards. I don’t recognize outside awards but they seem to work that in with their award. Kids who got outside awards are also good at something that school would like to commend. From what I hear many kids at my D’s HS work to get included in cum laud. That’s the majority of awardees at about 20. The other awards go to stand-out kids.

6

My kids school does a combined awards for the entire school. Takes about 2 hours during a school day morning. Lots of club recognitions, but many organizations of those are done in their own separate ceremonies so this isn’t too bad. Recognition for act 23+ and sat 1000+(?). Recognition for straight A’s. My daughter has been called the last 2 years as a cyber team participant. This year she received 4 invitations so we know it is cyber, sat and act, but are anxious to see what the 4th is tomorrow morning.

They also award/announce a few school specific scholarships.

7

I work for our scholarship board locally, and we do have an awards night where we combine all of the small local awards and the “named” awards given by local organizations. I have seen where some of our “best and brightest” may not apply for these awards and therefore go relatively unrecognized on awards night. Time would be a limiting factor to announce much more. I agree they are generally small financially, but they can be a make or break award for some of our recipients. Every year, we hear that our system is flawed, and unfair to a particular population or student who was deserving. But often, some of the best academics don’t make the same effort in applications. They don’t tell their parents they blew it off, but it is clear to us. I have asked nearly every complaining parent to volunteer to help us do it better, sadly, we are still a very small group.

8

Our school has one, but since my older d is only a sophomore, I’m not sure quite how well it’s done.

I will say though that my kids stopped putting much depth of feeling and thought into awards back in elementary school. That opinion hasn’t changed through middle or high school (so far). And this isn’t sour grapes as my kids have received awards in school before. The thing is, when kids they see be rude, cliquey or even bully are given character awards, if my kids also win them then my kids feel they are meaningless.

The academic awards are defined by the teachers or departments. Some are given to kids the teachers perceive as hardest working, some to most improved, some to highest grades, some based on some type of holistic definition. That lack of consistency tends to undermine their worth for my kids.

I am kind of glad though. It means my kids don’t define their academic and character worth or ability by extrinsic rewards or other people’s opinions. They tend to view some of the awards as fun, like extra frosting on a cake, but aren’t sad if they don’t get them.

9

@mom2twogirls - Like your kids, my D and her friends and peers have watched the kids who kiss up to the teachers but are mean to their peers get character awards, etc. My D pretty much laughed at one recognition she did receive earlier this year for those reasons. But senior year has been a sort of breaking point. There’s a growing number of students and parents who are fed up with the school picking and choosing who to recognize. Random things occasionally make it to the district’s Facebook page, or the principal will tweet about one girl winning an OOS scholarship, but it’s never clear why they pick those students and won’t recognize anyone else. There’s a lot of “how the heck did he/she get into Top College if they’re not even invited to senior recognition night?” going on right now.

I would like to see senior awards night where each senior is invited to submit a short statement listing their biggest accomplishments. They’d call each senior up once. Any local awards, etc. would be on that list, but also anything else the student did that they feel is noteworthy. I would think that wouldn’t take any more time than the current system where they call by award and some students go up many times. It’s the up and down that eats up time, not the stating of the award.

10

[quote=@suburbmom]

They recognize a large number of students for a lot of little awards, while full ride scholarships, national awards won for something the student did on their own, outside scholarships -
even if they come with extra money for the school - etc. are not recognized at all. To the point where several kids graduating at the top of the class will not be recognized at all (one of whom got into 2 or 3 Ivies.)]

Senior award night is not the platform for this recognition students who have gotten full ride scholarships, admitted to the Ivies, as these students have been recognized by their colleges by virtue of their admissions to those schools. Personally if I hear one more Eggbert got a full scholarship to Harvard (when we know that Harvard only gives need based aid) I will set my own hair on fire (lucky me, that I keep it cut short).

There are limited time for awards and Senior awards are designed to recognize students for what they have done during high school (academic, service, School as a community, state and local awards). My guess is that they are school awards, awards given by the school district, city and state awards.

You can’t have it both ways. It sounds like this is no big secret; the test is open, if students decide to say screw it and don’t want to participate int he process of getting an award, they have no reason to complain because they did not get one. If a student chooses not to apply for a scholarship or sit for the test for an award, they have a 100% chance of not getting one. They have no reason to be upset because they were not recognized.

I am quite sure that your school has a senior wall which indicates where every one has been accepted in addition to college signing day or on the back of the graduation program stating that the class of 2017 is headed to (list of schools where students are headed , not by name) if they want to have an assembly to recognize Eggbert’s acceptance to (name your school), then have at it.

11

My kids’ high school did this. It was in the evening and by invitation only (so the parents of kids who were to be recognized received an invite) and I thought it was a lovely night each time I attended. Lots of kids that you don’t hear much about in the local media are there receiving scholarship awards from local businesses, churches and foundations or other awards from their future colleges and agree that each year the really, bright kids getting a boat load of financial aid from the lottery colleges might be a tad under-represented although those tend to be the kids that do go up for the “department” recognition. But for some of the kids getting up on stage it is their and their parents’ shining night and I think it’s a nice tradition. They also have a tradition of the local service recruiters coming to congratulate the kids going into military academies or who are entering the military and announcing the senior scholars who will walk through the graduation a week or so later with the gold tassels, and the senior speaker voted on by the students. It’s a nice night…and something they didn’t do back in my high school days.

12

How big is your HS?

My kids went to a big, diverse public (3K kids) and the awards ceremony is affected by that. There are just so many kids and so many organizations it is a challenge to figure out who to recognize and how. It is a work in progress.

The way it currently works: PTA stuff happens and PTA scholarships are given out. These are weighted so that academic achievers are most likely to win them. Then the top 1% of the senior class gets recognized. Each gets to give a short speech, which is a shout out to some memorable teacher. Then kids are recognized alphabetically. The big all school award ceremony tries to focus on kids who are NOT recognized in a special interest award ceremony. That means sports awards aren’t mentioned because those are featured in the booster club ceremony. The all school award ceremony focuses primarily on academics. Some music awards are mentioned, but as part of recognizing a kid who also won an academic award, like saying “Bobby Brown is in the top 5% of his class and also was named to all state band.” The band and other music groups have their own awards dinners.

It recognizes all grades. A kid could receive an award every year.

It recognizes some kids who win awards in non academic areas that do not have a separate ceremony (or at least not yet). Our kids have begun to compete in welding, for example. This is new and there isn’t a way to acknowledge their achievements. Some kids have won big state awards in welding and they get a shout out.

Okay, to make it more complicated, college scholarship winners are recognized at graduation as well. The school mentions all of them and does not necessarily explain them well. Those kids who get need based awards? They get mentioned, but the reason isn’t explained. The kid who got a small scholarship from a local group? That gets mentioned, but not the amount. Scholarships that aren’t accepted get mentioned, too. I used to think that was weird, but see now that some parents appreciate hearing the name of the scholarship and remember it for their kids.

It is hard to know what is going on school wide a such a big school. I can imagine a kid getting a big DI athletic scholarship being known, but a kid who won a state award in swimming or tennis and then went to a DIII school would only be known to those who attended the booster club dinner. National Merit winners are recognized on the football field at homecoming, which is nice, but they don’t get a separate mention at the all school awards ceremony. It is just part of a kid’s CV if he wins another academic award.

13

Our school does a lot of different recognition’s. Last week there was an in school gathering for the Scholar Athletes. My D went, picked up her certificate, t-shirt and left which is what most kids did. Last night was the Orchestra banquette and the Seniors are always recognized and it is announced where they are going to school. (3 Harvard’s, 1 Brown, 1 Cornell then lots of Indiana and Purdue since we are in Indiana) but they don’t acknowledge any scholarships.

Thursday there is a in school ceremony for all students who won scholarships from the schools they are attending. Then Thursday night there is a ceremony for students who won local scholarships. My D won something but we don’t know what yet as they officially award them at the ceremony.

Our school does a lot of recognition but a lot of it is also done in school and at the individual group banquets. I know the school does ask students to report awards they received so they can be recognized at the Thursday in school ceremony.

14

Our school recognized the kids winning the local awards, course awards, and the National Merit semi-finalists and commended. Also kids going to service academies.

There are not awards given for those who won big outside scholarships or who won some big outside award, unless it was related to something in the classroom. I agree with Sybbie as the school does not award these and has no control over them.

Of course there is unfairness, in that the kid’s selected for the AP Calc award (for example) may be the kid that the teacher likes the best rather than the best student. If your HS does this based on a test, that almost seems more fair. If your kid chooses not to take the test, that is their issue.

Your kid will graduate and you will pretty much never think about awards night again.

15

Our high school does this, we had it last week actually. Around 370 graduating, and it was by invitation only. They present school and community scholarships and athletic awards (which I didn’t feel belonged there with the academics, but what do I know). We learned the day before that my son was awarded a pretty large national scholarship and I emailed the info to our organizer and she included it in the evening. That was nice. If an athlete gets a full ride that is recognized as well. I heard that if you get merit scholarships you can inform the school and they will include it in the awards night, but either no one did or they do not recognize them because no mention was made. It lasts about 2 hours.

16

My kids were in the same graduating class so I got everything from two views as my kids are very different.

All athletic teams had their own banquets. The athletes who were going to play in college had a ‘signing day’ party even if they weren’t technically signing an NLI. This was very nice, the best awards ceremony I attended. I think there were about 30 athletes going on to college, from community college baseball (very big in Florida) to MIT and Navy.

There was a senior awards night, and athletic awards were not included except for the top girl and top boy award given by the booster club. And the girl going to Navy. The girl going to Navy was mentioned at every opportunity.

There were school awards like the NHS, the top 20, the val and sal, some civic group awards, some military (ROTC and others) awards. These were all sort of organized by the school and the recipients/parents invited. Some of the state colleges turned in the names of scholarship recipients and they were called up (although some kids weren’t going to those schools!) Things like Bright Futures were not recognized. Academic All Americans (sports) were not recognized even though academics is a huge portion of the award (but no money attached). Top history, English, etc were announced.

Any student who received a scholarship from a college could fill in that information on their senior graduation paperwork, and then they were invited, but there was no effort to encourage these kids to update the forms when the scholarships were received in March-April-May. No effort to get more kids involved. One daughter filled in the info about her talent scholarship, but not merit. The other daughter did not fill in any information about her pretty large merit scholarship.

All in all, it was a disappointing night. A friend said to me at the end, “well that was strange.” It just seemed odd to have an awards ceremony with kids getting a ‘college scholarship’ for making a video about lasers pointed at airplanes ($500 split three ways) and not recognizing all the Bright Futures earners, or those who got into great schools like MIT because there was no scholarship.

None of this was in the graduation program. No mention of colleges, no scholarships, no honors (except school awarded top 20, summa, magna, etc). And the girl going to Navy. In other high school grad programs, I’ve seen the name of the college student attending and any merit scholarship listed (or the name of it, like Presidential Scholar, Daniels scholar). I actually knew more kids from my nephew’s graduating class because my kids had gone to grade school with them, so I enjoyed reading through it and seeing where they were all going to college.

17

@sybbie719 - You are actually quite wrong in your assumption: “I am quite sure that your school has a senior wall which indicates where every one has been accepted in addition to college signing day or on the back of the graduation program stating that the class of 2017 is headed to (list of schools where students are headed , not by name) if they want to have an assembly to recognize Eggbert’s acceptance to (name your school), then have at it.”

There’s neither a wall with acceptances nor a mention in the graduation program, or on their website, or anywhere. They say they don’t keep track (ie don’t care), but they will hold an assembly for D1 athletes. The closest thing is a day when seniors are encouraged to wear a t-shirt representing what they will do after graduation.

“All in all, it was a disappointing night. A friend said to me at the end, “well that was strange.” It just seemed odd to have an awards ceremony with kids getting a ‘college scholarship’ for making a video about lasers pointed at airplanes ($500 split three ways) and not recognizing all the Bright Futures earners, or those who got into great schools like MIT because there was no scholarship.” - @twoinanddone That’s sounds like here - too many parents just shaking their heads. At least your school offers the opportunity to submit information, even if students aren’t encouraged to do it.

18

My kids school went through several iterations of all school Awards Programs while we were active parents. One year, it was a day time program - we received a special invite as parents of a kid who would be receiving a non-specified award. I couldn’t get any info as to what the award was and the kid had no idea. DH and I felt we couldn’t take the day off work and did not attend - with kid’s blessing. It turned out that the surprise was a nice, meaningful award and we would have enjoyed being present. Sigh.

So, next year, DH attended. He and kid sat through an hour long presentation of sports awards. I have no objections to sports awards, but this was 3/4s of the program. Kid got a perfect attendance award.

So many teachers complained about the length of sports presentations that the school went to a separate Sports Night. Teachers felt the number of sports achievements over shadowed the academic achievers. By then, we’d given up attending.

19

This is a sore point with me. My daughter’s HS had an by invitation only senior awards night - the school is large (graduating class of like 700).

Two things irked me. The first was the inconsistency between departments in how they awarded seniors. The Math department only presented two awards - 800 on the SAT and best Math student overall. The Physical Arts department (separate from performing arts) awarded a dozen awards - things along the line of best ceramics project. The Language Arts department awarded a few different things but not 800 on the SAT (which would have been in line with the equivalent Math award).

The second thing that irked me was that all of the memorial awards (they were all done by application and there were many) went to athletes (despite athletic accomplishments not being in the criteria). The community awards (PTO, local PBA, etc.) - all seemed to be given out very fairly (kids with significant financial need - which they had indicated on their applications by putting down their EFC).
The only non-school or non-community specific awards I have seen them present were Presidential Scholar (perfect ACT/SAT) and when somebody got a full military tuition scholarship.

20

My daughter’s first high school had an awards ceremony every spring to recognize the top students in every class. And I don’t mean the top students in the junior class, for example, I mean the top student in freshman honors bio section 1, intro to Latin section 2, AP Calc BC, section 1, etc… It went on all night and was ridiculous on so many levels. If you were a kid who won a lot of awards, there was pressure to do the same thing plus one next year. If you didn’t get any awards, you weren’t invited to the ceremony at all. The school eventually came to recognize the absurdity of this ceremony (I mean, who really wants to see freshmen get an award for top GPA in honors geometry, section 2?) and scaled it back, but this was after we left.

At the school where both my kids graduated, seniors were recognized on class day, held a few days before graduation. In this ceremony, top students in each subject, including athletics and arts, were recognized, as were the val and sal, the only two officially ranked students.This seems more rational to me than the blowout prize extravaganza of the previous high school.