It’s not about the Valedictorian’s sense of self-worth or need for adulation, it’s about people wanting to have a hero. Traditionally, it’s been the highest-achieving student in the class and that’s someone who is supposed to be a traditional hero. It just doesn’t always pan out that way anymore.
The systems in which students choose their Valedictorian are probably the ones which most closely follow what the original purpose of this was.
If you’ve ever attended a graduation in which the Valedictorian was also extremely popular with the students, you’ll know what I mean.
I don’t think a high school needs a valedictorian, or a herd of valedictorians. It needs somebody to deliver a good speech at graduation, and there are better ways to identify somebody who can do that. I agree with those who think there are just too many problems–weighted classes, gaming the system, how to treat students who transfer from a school with a different weighting system, completely different meanings from different schools, etc. They didn’t have it at my kids’ school, and there would only be, at most, two people each year who would miss it.
For what it’s worth, I was the val at my school decades ago–and I protected my status by dropping an elective senior year (mechanical drawing) after the teacher said he almost never gave As–and it was an unweighted class. Instead, I left for home an hour early (which seniors could do in those days). That was gaming the system, certainly.
No doubt this is true, and it would be great for schools to recognize academic excellence as much as they do athletic prowess.
However, the comparison to athletics shows one very telling difference. Athletics does teach kids how to compete and how to handle winning and losing. Schools would never think of naming 222 starting quarterbacks; there would never be 222 state champions. Athletes simply accept this.
The sheer amount of whining about the rules for naming the valedictorian, and the inability of students and parents to handle the fact that only one student (or at most a few) can receive the honor, is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe these people should be required to play a sport so they can learn how to handle losing with grace and class. Perhaps having learned these life-lessons is why college athletes tend to be more successful after graduation?
This is a complete joke. Parents and school administrators although well meaning are totally messing up the students with this nonsense.
This isn’t how the real world works (“we are pleased to announce that we have 20 out of our 40 sales people designated the top sales person of the year!” “we are giving out Nobel Prizes to every nominated individual along with a few who wrote more that 15 papers this year” “we now have 15 people as the GOP nominee along with 5 from the democrat party, so the ballets will look different this year” “oh look, we now have 7 people who won the Presidency this year!”)
Val and Sal are for the top Gpa and the second. That is all.
If you want to give out more awards, then have Highest Honors, Honors, and Met Requirements designations.
When did we start believing that shielding kids from competition and reality is a good thing?
Does anyone think that learning how to compete and learning how to deal with the fact that you are GASP only the 3rd or 10th or 20th best at something is a bad thing?
@skyoverme Not all competition is bad. Competition that causes people to take extreme measures for something of little actual worth, however, is not healthy.
@JustOneDad I never thought about it that way, but that certainly is true in a lot of instances.
@FallGirl makes a really good point. I was on a school trip (a national science fair) during the time when our class had their graduation picture taken. The administration wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that if a sports team were away.
I think instead of having the top GPA be valedictorian, people should reconsider the actual definition of valedictorian and have someone elected from the top 10%. It isn’t just about grades. The valedictorian should represent the class. Yes, it would be a popularity contest, but choosing from the top 10 or top 10% would ensure that the person was at least qualified to possibly be the top student anyway. Schools should also consider both weighted and unweighted grades. I’m not saying it should be pure one or the other. That would encourage either the weight game or the easy A game. Looking at both is important.
Sure, why not? Let’s redefine it to mean the tallest person in the class.
This is an endemic problem today - lets redefine words because we don’t like what they really mean, because you prefer what you admit would devolve into a popularity contest. Vote for Pedro!
People should either use words the correct way or make up new words.
@skyoverme Considering the definition of valedictorian is “one who says farewell,” I don’t see how restricting the title to the one student who actually performs that function is in any way redefining the word. It’s a convention that the top student gives the valediction, and that qualification is not intrinsic to the definition of the word itself. Coming from a valedictorian (one who both gave the valediction and was chosen because of his having the top GPA), I actually like the idea of having students compete to give the address rather than it automatically going to the student with the highest grades. However I wouldn’t like for students to vote for their favorite peer; rather I would invite the top students (whatever cut off that may entail) to submit speeches to a blind committee of teachers and administrators. The best speech is chosen for graduation, and the runner up is chosen to deliver the salutation. That way it’s still competitive but is a bit more relevant to the actual function of the valedictorian.
Also, I think a lot of people here forget that most students don’t know they’ve been chosen until a few days before graduation anyway, so the claim that they will be deprived of any title to put on their college apps is illogical. The student ranked first will still be able to put that on his applications (and is required to, in fact) regardless whether he is ever chosen to deliver the valediction.
@skyoverme, what I meant by that statement was that we need to go back to what the dictionary definition of a valedictorian is, not changing the definition. Here’s what Oxford says it is: " In colleges, academies, etc., the student (male or female) appointed on grounds of merit to deliver the valedictory oration on Commencement day." I never said we should redefine the word. @MedBound17 that is a great idea. I don’t love the idea of student elections, but I still feel like the val should represent the class. Teacher nominations would be an excellent way to keep the merit in the system without it devolving into a GPA war on the scale of thousanths of points. Plus, the top students do not necessarily write the best speeches. My school’s valedictorian made a laundry list of his achievements and closed with “see you in the bars!”
I like the idea of students choosing a speaker. But the idea of having several people write speeches in advance–not so much. Seems like a waste of time. Also, it seems like speechwriting by committee to have those voting pick the actual speech. Rubs me the wrong way somehow.
Also, seems like graduation would be even more boring if everyone already knew what the speech was going to say.
@medbound17 Considering the definition of valedictorian is “one who says farewell,”
The Merriam Webster definition is: “the student who has the highest grades in a graduating class and who gives a speech at graduation ceremonies”
Yes, I am sure you can find a way to trace back the origin of the word to the silly definition that you gave, but the connotation and denotation is very clear.
@gostgirl19 I never said we should redefine the word… I still feel like the val should represent the class.
Say Huh??? The class President or the head of student council is the one who represents the class. That representation comes from elections.
Why the heck does everything need to be a popularity contest, why are we so afraid of recognizing the top academic achievement? Even though you say you don’t want to redefine the word, you are trying to by putting that condition on what the valedictorian is - the person with the highest academic achievement. Period.
My son’s school had some silly student-elected Cum Laude society where last year’s members got to vote on the applicants. It of course became a popularity contest, more so each year, as popular kids came to dominate the election.
I’m glad though, because DS and many other kids got to see how silly these things can be. The college application results of the selected were no better than the others, and I think AOs know better than to attach any weight to these things. I’m sure the newspaper write ups made more than one grandparent proud though
My son’s take on this was: “well, if I can’t be voted into the Cum Laude society in high school, I guess I’ll have to be awarded cum laude or better at Yale.”
@skyoverme I agree completely with your past few statements. From a parent who watched his daughter struggle for four years trying to compete with the athletes, she felt very good to be recognized for what she does best.
Frankly, this “recognition” does not go further than HS. All colleges recognize are the numbers, the GPA, the standardized test score, the rank (even when HS does not rank). There are certain selective programs where specific ECs are also a must. That is the reason, why many top HSs just drop all those val’s sal’s labels and stopped ranking students. Why do something that has no meaning for colleges as they calculate ranking themselves. For that matter, adcoms even strip down the weighted GPA and re-calculate it themselves.
At D’s school (and it was many years ago), there were no val’s, no sal’s, no ranking and no weighted GPAs. You want to pursue very selective programs at colleges, it is up to you to take the most rigorous classes, colleges will recognize it with or without weighted GPA and in fact many will recognize the names of certain HSs that are known for having more rigorous academics than many others. C’mon, say your kid happen to be the only one with the GPA=4.0 uw and still with the most possible rigorous classes. This fact alone is a pretty darn good evidence for the college that this applicant graduated at the top of her HS class. And if she has all other things that some programs require and not require, but she somehow found the time to pursue many of her personal interests, there is no obstacle for this applicant, she will be successful at pretty much anything that her heart desires! And being an athlete and the good one at that on top of being at the top academically does not hurt at all! Actually sport is a great thing for personal growth, so much they learn outside of the class, how to win and how to lose, how to be accepting and how to achieve. These character traits make them great team players later on, it is recognized as one of the most important character traits of the Science Researcher, MD, lawyer, a business person,…etc…
They also learn how to deal with the fact that at the end of the season there is usually one champion (team or individual) who triumphed above the rest. They look at that as a worthy accomplishment that they will try to achieve the next year.
Sadly, we have lost that in the area of academics where people now feel that we have to coddle the kids, protect them from the real world, have everyone a winner, or even, laughably, have elections to determine who is worthy of being honored with the highest academic award.
