How close is close enough for declaring co-salutatorians?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>My school recently announced the valedictorian and co-salutatorians, which has caused some minor issues that could potentially grow. Despite the lack of an exact tie, my school declared the students ranked 2nd and 3rd to be co-salutatorians. The difference in GPA is approximately 0.04 - a small, but still noticeable difference. The valedictorian’s GPA is either .01 or .12 higher than the person ranked 2nd (there’s still a discrepancy over whether or not Health was counted, and GPAs aren’t officially available yet). Obviously, all 3 worked equally as hard. But is the difference small enough to warrant giving a title to the person who is 3rd? For reference, the person who is 4th is around 1.3 points lowers than the person who is 3rd. So there’s a fairly large difference there.</p>

<p>I don’t really have an opinion either way. I see the logic of both sides: the GPAs were so close, so the person in 3rd deserves recognition. On the other hand, the person in 2nd did earn the higher GPA, and therefore deserves the title of salutatorian, and shouldn’t have to share it. What do you think?</p>

2

<p>So you’re saying there’s a chance that the val and first sal are actually closer than the two sals? WTH?</p>

3

<p>They are all good students. I would not get overally concerned about it as I don’t think it hurts the “first” salutatorian in any way. It’s a little silly of course, since easy to just have one - but I think it’s a decent gesture. Ranking between students is always a little quirky since you can’t take fully into account the rigour of their classes. At my D’s school they don’t even use weighted averages - which has led to the V and S being students with the highest GPA’s - but one of them never took a single AP class. My advice is - share the honors and be happy for all three of the kids.</p>

4

<p>If the difference is that small there should be joint valedictorians and one sal</p>

5

<p>I kind of feel that valedictorian and salutatorian are a bit overrated. At this point, everyone has decided where to go to school and it’s really mostly a title and prestige. Maybe I’m just being naive, but is being val/sal really that big of a deal?</p>