<p>School here does a college award ceremony. by invitation only to students who have received a scholarship or award form a University or College. Often times an Alumni of the University is present to give the award.</p>
<p>I enjoyed it just to see who was going where among my son’s friends</p>
<p>Interesting that some schools make a big deal about honor roll. At our kids’ HS, the honor roll is literally that-a piece of paper with a bunch of names typed on it, taped on the wall outside the principal’s office. It is never published in any other way, nor is there any further recognition of honor roll students. We didn’t even know there was an honor roll until we happened to be at the school one day and looked at the paper on the wall.</p>
<p>We don’t even have an honor roll that I’m aware of …</p>
<p>Go look outside the principal’s office-it might be there!</p>
<p>we have a n honor roll b/c it says whether or not you were on the honor roll on ur report card. there’s no paper or anything or publishment and noboyd cares about it</p>
<p>Maybe a lot of schools should make more of a big deal about honor rolls and other academic achievements. I don’t see why it’s any less worthy of public attention than high achievement in athletics, or anything else. Nobody thinks it’s unseemly or embarrassing or uncool if the school newspaper or the local town paper has a big story about the captain of the baseball team, or if the school lines its hallways with glass cases filled with every trophy or ribbon that anyone at the school has ever won in the last 60 years. And I have no problem with attention being paid to sports; I just think it shouldn’t overshadow academics.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>My son refused to go and as it turns out I think it was best. All the information was sent in to the guidance counselors by the students before the ceremony. Turns out a lot of the kids had awards announced to schools they were not even going to. A friend did give us the program and you could see who cared the most about the ceremony-the ones who sent in multiple awards. The majority of the top students in the class did not send in anything and did not go.</p>
<p>Folks, y’all do know that college is the same, don’t you? Some kid gets this award. Some other gets that prize. ODK. Phi Beta Kappa. As a junior. 
Cum laude and the twins, magna and summa. Order of the Coif and Barristers in Law School. Law Review. Moot Court and Mock Trial champions. Are you going to take issue with those, too?</p>
<p>Wow, my school doesn’t even give out awards. There’s something called Seniors Recognition Night, but that’s where they tell everyone what colleges offered you scholarships. I don’t really get it. There’s some kind of all-A awards ceremony, but I think it’s mostly freshmen who attend. It’s sort of weird, though, because you could be getting straight 90’s in regular classes and be ranked in the bottom half and still get the award, while someone in the top 5% who got an 89 in PE wouldn’t get it.</p>
<p>If you get National Merit, they’ll announce it over the morning broadcast about twelve times, though. If there are more than six of you, the superintendent will get in on and fawn over you in some sort of press release.</p>
<p>We have a ‘recognition’ ceremony that honors achievement and effort. We have ceremony after each season (fall, winter, spring). We also honor arts and community service at a special ceremony. I love the fact that all intelligences are appreciated and acknowledged. We don’t rank and we don’t have honor rolls.</p>
<p>Our HS has an annual awards thing called the Evening of Excellence, which is prefaced by an art show and the distribution of the literary magazine.I’ve always enjoyed the art show tremendously. Kids who are going to be recognized are invited. </p>
<ul>
<li>Kids are recognized for being on the honor roll or high honors for all of the first 3 quarters of the year. </li>
<li>Juniors and seniors are inducted into the NHS.</li>
<li>Junior year book awards are announced and presented.</li>
<li>Kids placing in the national language exams at the state/national level are given their awards. (Anyone who has won a state/national language award of another type is presented with that, too.)</li>
<li>Seniors are presented with departmental language awards.</li>
</ul>
<p>For some reason, they do all the language stuff on this one night. Other departmental awards and scholarships and so forth are announced at Class Day, I gather. I don’t really know what the deal is with that, since I haven’t had a senior before.</p>
<p>I admit that I’ve always enjoyed it because my kid always shines on those national language exams, so it’s a nice evening for him. 
It’s also nice to see kids being recognized for academic achievement. To my knowledge, the school makes no announcement of National Merit or Presidential Scholar status. (Maybe at Class Day?) I also have no idea whether they still declare a val or sal. Most people regard it as somewhat questionable, since there is no grade weighting and several years ago the val had never taken a single honors or AP course. Although there are certainly many excellent students in the “Top Ten” --published by local custom in the local paper–many of the best students in the class are not among them for the same reason. If grades were weighted, the cast of characters would definitely change to some degree.</p>
<p>I vote Nay.</p>
<p>Thirty-seven years ago, when I was a public high school senior, the end of the school year was a time when all students were still actively pursuing final grades (upon which senior class final ranking was determined) and preparing for state-standardized end-of-course exams. Instructional time was at a premium, so the only school-sponsored “senior activities” were the nighttime prom and the weekend graduation ceremony itself, at which the recently-determined valedictorian and salutatorian gave brief speeches, and only a handful of community non-profit organization-conferred merit award recipients were announced. The graduation ceremony commemorative booklet listed all graduates alphabetically, and separately listed only the top ten ranking seniors, senior members of the National Honor Society, and the state Board of Education Regents Scholarship winners. Graduates were called on-stage in alphabetical order to receive their diplomas. All graduates wore strictly identical attire.</p>
<p>My daughter’s experience as a graduating senior of a public high school located in another state will be entirely different. About a month ago, her school mailed all seniors graduation packets containing information about school-sponsored “senior activities” for which attendance is either voluntary or mandatory. Voluntary activities include the prom, the senior trip, and an “inspirational” (Christian) district-wide nighttime graduation ceremony (none of which my daughter will attend), as well as an invitation-only nighttime awards ceremony (which my daughter might attend). The mandatory activities–held during the school day this week and next week–include a “motivational” presentation, a breakfast, a softball game, a senior slide show (whatever that is), and a “senior department awards” (whatever those are) ceremony. When my daughter learned that attendance at these time-wasting daytime events (for which the real purpose is to open the campus to college, corporate, military, and other organizational recruiters) was mandatory, she was livid, as were many of her classmates, because all these activities have been scheduled to take place during the same subject period in which my daughter and her classmates are reviewing material in preparation for their first scheduled AP exam.</p>
<p>My daughter’s school is cutthroat-competitive, and our community’s social status consciousness is over-the-top. Therefore, my daughter and most of her classmates hold a wisely cynical viewpoint of the upcoming awards ceremonies, which they consider to be “just another way for the school and the community to promote themselves.” She says that “everybody knows” the awards will be based upon “popularity, pomposity, and pity.” She also says that although most students don’t “buy into” the awards, the most popular and/or pompous students will be “crushed” if they don’t receive one, and the students who receive pity-based awards will be “publicly humiliated.” My daughter doesn’t object to the awards themselves, but she does object to the public–and potentially hurtful and/or humiliating–manner in which the awards will be announced. I have already told my daughter that when she attends the mandatory awards ceremony, and if she attends the invitation-only awards ceremony, she will have to exhibit the utmost grace and dignity whether or not she receives an award. Her response: “Absolutely.”</p>
<p>My daughter’s school is taking its Some Students Are Better Than Others attitude right up to Graduation Day itself, when high-achieving students are permitted to advertise their “superior” status with various graduation garb adornments, including a golden tassel available on a voluntary individual-request basis. My daughter qualifies to receive a golden tassel, but she hasn’t requested one. She says, “Graduation Day is for everybody; I’m graduating just like everybody else, and that’s that.” On Graduation Day, when my daughter is handed her diploma by her school’s status-conscious principal, I hope everybody present who knows my daughter and knows of her academic achievements, notices her school-colored tassel and understands what it means.</p>
<p>Oh this is a sour topic for me. DD was 8th in her class (of 190 students). She never received an academic honor in four years of high school. She was “invited” to these events to receive music awards…not her passion but she happened to be good at it. At our school the same kids got the awards year after year…and others (like mine) flew under the radar screen. She had the highest grades in several classes year after year and was passed over for awards. She was the ONLY student in the top 10 who hadn’t ever received an academic award. </p>
<p>Unless and until schools figure out a way to deal with these awards so that students like my kid (yep…I’m biased…but her high school performance sure supported SOME award during the four years) are recognized, I think they shouldn’t happen.</p>
<p>Oddly, my kid got more local scholarships than any other student in her graduating class…so why didn’t the SCHOOL ever recognize her???</p>
<p>Off my soapbox.</p>
<p>Our school has what’s called the Excellence Awards. Each department (from English to JROTC to Choral Music) establishes criteria for recognition. I think the only department not giving an award is Physical Education. Freshmen, sophomores and juniors can receive recognition and then receive a “label” depending on how many recognitions they receive. So, if you get five recognitions in say Journalism, English, History, Math and Science, you are “superlative”. Four, “outstanding”. And so on and so forth. No one knows in which areas you were recognized unless you show them your certificate that is presented with a medal. Seniors can receive these recognitions but are also eligible for individual recognition as departmental senior and then there is an overall senior. Scholarships, book awards, etc. are announced at an end of the year assembly during school. </p>
<p>I like our awards just because they really do recognize a broad cross-section of the school community. Everyone really seems to enjoy it. I feel fortunate that my children don’t attend schools such as the one you describe, TimeCruncher; all in all the students seem to appreciate and celebrate each other’s accomplishments.</p>
<p>I come from a school that had “Prize Day” in which the entire upper school (Prep school of around 420) gathered in the auditorium with invited parents and the faculty to award prizes. I was one of the kids who won all the prizes and I HATED IT!. It is so awkward being called up to the stage while your friends are forced to watch. This was particularly bad because about half of the awards were called “character and influence” prizes which honored service, personality, effort, etc, and they still went to the same kids who won academic prizes. </p>
<p>I propose that schools limit the number of awards that a student can get per year or per high school career so it would force them to look around. I also think that they should take out the “highest overall average” quotient of the award so that it can go to improvement, passion, and effort.</p>
<p>The first year, my son sat there while 4 kids in class won most of the 30 awards. Second year, my son was one of those 4 kids. He was really embarassed! Teachers could have compared notes and “spread it around” a little bit. This was the perfect time for us to go to administration and complain. We were complaining as winners! The next 2 years they switched to invitation only so only awardees were invited. Then some mom complained that she wanted everyone to acknowledge her daughter’s hard work so now everyone is being forced to endure the pain. In defense of athletes, I have never heard of a school forcing ALL of the students to sit through athletic awards. That just doesn’t happen so don’t make us sit through academic awards.</p>
<p>Our high school’s awards night reminds me of what Sir Rudolph Bing, director of the Metropolitan Opera, once said about an especially endless production: “It’s longer than Gotterdammerung, but not as funny.” </p>
<p>I think that awards are fine as long as everyone is clear on what they are. They’re pieces of paper, sometimes in cheap frames, or shiny inexpensive trophies, and they usually mean that a committee who wanted to get home already thought you, or your child, met the criteria for receiving them. The committee almost certainly cared less about who received the awards than the potential awardees did/do. Sometimes you really are the best actress or trombone player or AP Economics student within shouting distance, and it’s nice when that happens. But you either are those things or you’re not, and the paper or shiny trophy doesn’t make it so. </p>
<p>I say this as the mother of one child who was embarrassingly showered with prizes during her hs career, some of which probably could just as fairly have gone to other students; another child who dearly wanted a particular award, didn’t get it, and found the other awards she received didn’t make up for the disappointment, at which point she also learned that life is not fair; and a third child who was stunned to receive the award she received last year (her lone trophy to date ). Also as the girl who won her school’s mathematics prize 30-some years ago by randomly bubbling in circles on the exam sheet when I realized I had 4 minutes left in which to do 20 problems. I’ve learned that it’s best to adopt an “oh, how nice” attitude about awards, whether my family gets ‘em or not.</p>
<p>D1’s school had an awards mass (Catholic school) that I think was beautiful, meaningful and respectful. The honors were awarded in a fair and open manner, and there weren’t bull___ awards, so it didn’t last forever. The priest, who was also the religion teacher, passed away two weeks ago, so the kids got together to go to his viewing. Many came home from away just to attend, but they have the memory of that lovely mass – which was much nicer than the debacle-ish graduation ceremony.</p>
<p>frazzles1, funny about the math prize you received. After my daughter’s 6th grade awards ceremony at which one boy was recognized for having the best score in the district on some statewide math test, my daughter said, “Do you know that I got the second best score?” No recognition at the school, of course-I didn’t think it was any big deal. The school hadn’t even mentioned it to us. Then, about a year later, I was randomly googling her name and saw that she had the third best score in our region on the test and the 4th best score in the whole state. Three years later, her name is still up on some website as a high scorer, but her school didn’t think that was worthy of a mention!</p>
<p>My school has an honors ceremony at the end of each year. Before I got there (I’m a junior) the administration used to hold two separate ceremonies - one for seniors and one for everybody else. Apparently parents complained that the events were too long, so they combined the two; now instead of 3 hours each, the program is about 2 hr and 45 min. It’s still too long considering the only thing you have to do is stand up when they call your name, but each department gives out an award to an agreed upon senior. Then they give out special scholarship. It’s mainly something for parents to gloat about because its pretty obvious whose going to get what departmental award and, as far as I know, most scholarship winners are notified before hand.</p>
<p>With all that being said, I’ll most likely attend the ceremony being held next week, just because my mom wants me to.</p>