Have 222 valedictorians in your city’s 3 high schools! Ridiculous1 http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/03/best-of-class-in-dublin-222-grads-tie.html This reminds me of every kid on the pee wee t-ball team getting a trophy. Completely waters down the meaning of a val or a sal. This is apparently 20% of the city’s 3 high schools. So the entire top 20% are all vals?? Absurd.
LOL, I think the term was rendered meaningless at least a decade ago. A number of oyears ago the high school honor role was published and it took a half a sheet of the newspaper in fly spec type. An old teacher, long retired, wrote a very long letter to the editor basically saying that there was something very wrong with education if everyone in the class was on the “honor roll.”
NBC nightly news just did a story on other schools doing the same thing. What nonsense. http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/crowded-at-the-top–high-schools-claim-multiple-valedictorians-458330691888 Now we have more studnets who can bellyache that they were vals and didn’t get into their top school choices.
It looks like schools are responding to warped incentives from external groups:
These scholarships were probably intended to reward the top student from every high school, which neatly sidesteps the whole, “some schools have grade inflation and others don’t so how can you compare GPAs?” issue. But then the schools realized that there’s no reason why there only has to be one top student…
The logical solution for those who see inequality as a problem.
One school gave the “val” title to anyone with a 4.0 + GPA. That is not what a val is. the val is the top student in the class.
But if u only give recognition to the top student in the class, it’ll hurt the self esteem of all the others-- think of all the years of therapy they’ll need.
D’s school gave val title to all who had a GPA over a certain number - 4.3, I think. Sal went to those who had over another number but less than the val GPA. BUT … if you had any grade lower than an A, you couldn’t be val or sal. She and a young man in her class had higher GPA’s than several of the vals, but because they each had a B+, they weren’t designated val or sal.
First of all, it seems silly to have more than one val (unless the GPA is tied - although even then, I think they should pick one). Second, the no-B thing is ridiculous. If they are going with a GPA, it should be the GPA, not the grades that make it up. But whatever … she didn’t care, he didn’t care … he went to Notre Dame, she went to Vanderbilt … the colleges didn’t care.
Good news for the sagging healthcare field.
Many high schools don’t rank. That’s the best way to render the term meaningless. Sure, kids can compare GPAs but they will never be certain who had the highest GPA if some top students keep their grades to themselves.
If you grant, for example, summa cum laude at 4.3+, magna cum laude at 4.00-4.29, cum laude at 3.70-3.99… it would resemble what pass for vals at too many schools to count.
If 222 are tied, maybe they could just all pair off and do rock, paper, scissors until a winner emerges.
My daughter’s high school doesn’t have a valedictorian or salutatorian but other schools in the city do. Speakers at graduation are peer-voted from the summa cum laudes. The other high schools sometimes have ties and a school might post three valedictorians with equal GPAs. Class rank is decided upon weighted GPA but summa, magna and cum laude stems from unweighted. I wonder how many summas or magnas are not even in the top 30 of the school?! But then again, every high school in the city does it differently … some post val/sal status and weighted GPA, others only post unweighted GPA. Btw, all high schools are large public high schools within the same school district, all with about 2,000 students and graduating classes of 550 or so.
Perhaps the GC recommended so that those 222 students will get in #1 college? Or the school district will get outstanding teaching award? 
My kid’s school does not have a valedictorian or salutatorian, but other high schools have them. The competition for valedictorian and salutatorian starts in the 7th grade. That’s when parents start planning their student’s class schedule so they “max out” on AP classes in high school. Even with weighted GPAs, there are ties for valedictorian. The school seems fine with that, although some parents have suggested using test scores to break the tie.
Yes, coolweather, they acknowledged that all these kids could claim val on their college apps and have a leg up in the app process. Seems like massive gaming of the system at the HS level. Very distasteful.
@kelsmom, how would you propose picking one Val if you have a tie? Just curious. My son’s class had ties for Val and Sal. I’d suspect that the ties had all A’s with the same number of honors and AP classes. I think there were 3 Vals and 2 Sals. I’m not sure how you pick one in that case. I think that’s pretty typical for our HS, although this year there was only one Val.
Summa, magma, cum laude are done by GPA but I don’t recall the cut offs. Quite a number of students were in those groups.
MidwestDad3, post #7: I suggest rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock
I mentioned this thread to my spouse, who immediately said, “I advert you to the parable of the hiring hall.” Matthew 20:1-16. Also called the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
Really, the only thing that will come out of this is “val” scholarships will disappear. Colleges are also tired of all of this nonsense. If I were running admissions and saw this trend, I’d be in the financial aid director’s office telling them to get rid of val scholarships and disperse them differently.
Can you imagine how many speeches there would be at graduation?