@sushiritto , thank you - I meant what time of day are the SAT scores released. 
8am ET? 5am ET? I had wondered if anyone knows from experience.
We have cum laude, magna and summa designations but no ranking. We do have Val. Usually have 8-10 tied as Val because it was just based on GPA and plenty of kids took the same courses and all got A’s. But recently they switched Val calculation to a number grade. So two kids can get the exact same grades for most of HS and in their last class if one gets a 98 and the other gets a 97, the 98 kid is VAL. That’s WAY too much pressure. I’ve already told my younger son just entering the same school that I do not care if he is VAL, and in fact I would rather him continue to play soccer, act in theatre and pursue other interests while maintaining the best grades he can get, then to stress over being VAL.
I really like how @RoonilWazlib99’s school does it with the cum laude’s rather than with val/sal. While sometimes you will get a student or two who are heads and shoulders above the rest, I think it’s more usual to have a small group of kids who are all packed at the top and the difference between them is minute. It seems a shame that a couple of hundreths of a point can make such a difference. And I also don’t like including the classes taken in 8th grade; I think it should be limited to whatever is taken in HS. There’s enough pressure on the kids, we don’t need to start it even earlier.
While I think colleges can see beyond the val/sal title, I think a lot of local scholarship committees don’t necessarily see beyond this.
And I don’t know how it can be done any better, but it’s been interesting to me to be on CC and hear how competitive some Texas high schools are so that the kids can get the auto-admit if they’re in the top 10%. I’m glad there is the ability for other kids to get in too (imagine missing 10% by a hundreth of a point, or because you took art rather than history?), but I wonder just how many seats are left for these kids.
And I don’t even know the best way to do all the weighting for classes. For instance, some people could think an art class isn’t deserving of being weighted, but you could have a fabulous teacher or a fabulous art student and this could be a very real, substantive class that is deserving of weighting. And aside from this, are we really so sure that we want a society where HS students don’t explore their creative side? I think there is a lot to be said for the benefits of art/theater/music, and I don’t know that we want to close off that exposure at age 13 or 14 so that they are still competitive academically for the top slots.
And I really don’t like how @labegg 's school does it with including ACT/SAT scores in the “distinguished student” award. School awards IMO should have nothing to do with standardized tests. There are separate awards from the standardized test companies for that.
Guess I’m being extra opinionated today. 
@Kayak24 I looked about 6:30am ET and the score was posted the first day. I don’t know the exact time but maybe that will help you a little bit.
@melvin123 =D> Agreed with your opinions 100%. Like you said there are all these kids bunched at the top (and yes mine is one of them)…the summa/magna/cum laude is a great way to acknowledge kids hard work in my opinion!!! I also agree about the music/theater/art.
S’18 was out of the val/sal race once he started taking percussion because it is not an honors course in 9th or 0th grade. c’est la vie.
Funny thing is, it was an honors music class that put my son into the top in 9th grade. In our school they group 9th graders into a group they call the 9th Grade Academy - halfway through the year, they have the “Academy awards”, one being for highest GPA, which my son did not get, another boy did. At the end of the year, when my son had a meeting with his GC, they realized that they honors music classes were not being given honors credit - that tiny bump pushed my son into 1st and he’s been there ever since. But the starting in jr. high is odd to me - though my son has always been a straight A kid, he had a horrible 5th grade math teacher so I didn’t let them put him into advanced math when he started middle school (which I never heard the end of and it is my fault he is not in AP Calc BC now… ah well) I last heard the gap between my son and #2 was .4 or .3 but I don’t know if that is a lot or not - and I think she took a class over the summer. It’s all confusing. I just want this part to be over.
Anyone with a 4.0 can be named valedictorian in our public school system. There are quite a few. I believe only the highest GPA speaks at graduation.
I just wrote a check for D’s AP exams. Ouch. (And we don’t pay for the second part of Physics C until March.)
Had a private school kid tell me that public school kids here don’t have to take AP exams. Talk about misinformation! Kids at our large public school are REQUIRED to take the exams. Parents have to sign off on each during registration the year before.
The distinguished award is a Texas state-wide award, but I don’t think all the schools have to participate, or use the recommended criteria from the state. It’s a stamp on the diploma, but our school does not recognize the students publicly. I believe our criteria is four of the following (may double up): National Merit recognition, A in a DE course, 4 or 5 on an AP test, professional certificate (EMT is the only one I know of being used).
Re: weighting of art classes - There’s a big hullabaloo at S’s school over this. S’s school weights them, but only the first two you take, and they have to be at the Honors level. So Art1H and Art2H are weighted, but Art3H and 4H aren’t.
This means that kids who do art, theatre, choir, band, orchestra and dance get locked out of Val/Sal, Top 10 graduation honors and pretty much the entire top 5% because there’s no way for them to earn a perfect 5.0 their last two years. No matter how many Honors or AP classes they take, their junior and senior fine arts classes will always be unweighted, which brings down their wGPA.
The fine arts kids protested, and a contingent of top-ranked kids and their parents protested back - nastily. High level fine arts classes are very rigorous. Yes, it’s often a different kind of rigor than math or science but different doesn’t mean less-than. I was so very disappointed at the ugly things the top-ranked families were saying, and not just to administrators or to other students; they went on record in the newspaper. S and I read the article and were both glad that S stepped off the rank merry-go-round early.
This same contingent are the ones who sometimes accuse S of gaming class rank because of his DE classes (guess they don’t know he’s way down in the high teens), and the same ones who were right pissed when it came out that S was the only NMSF not only in his school, but in all four districts that comprise our valley.
S loathes that kind of behavior, and (rightly or wrongly) wrote off many elite schools because that’s where that pack of kids all want to go. We couldn’t have afforded those schools anyway, but occasionally I’d bring up a free diversity fly-in and S would answer with enough vehemence that I had to ask what was up. He said there was no way on Earth he would go to a school that attracted that much toxic competitiveness.
Disclaimer - my comments are specific to the environment at S’s school and certain kids / families there. I’m not implying anything at all about those of you with Vals/Sals or Ivy/elite LAC hopefuls in the family!
@melvin123 re: your opinions, I agree as well. I usually calm myself understanding that at the end of the day, these are high school awards, and as such are really short-term, small-pond awards for the most part. Impressive and representative of a lot of effort and work, certainly, but often merely memories by the time college graduation rolls around… and hence not necessarily worth stressing over (other than those darn scholarships and such I agree… those in Texas do have it tough). The “top group” designations are usually more telling in my experience, as their group success usually correlates with their high level, and it’s comforting to validate that diligence and effort pay off.
(and on the other point, yes, I also found it strange for my S to get thank you notes/emails from some interviewers, but I didn’t read too much into them; more like a chance for them to model good behavior in front of my S. I guess my problem with the one school was how much the meeting gave me the heebee-geebees, and now I’m trying to glean for confirmation…)
@MomtoCon It definitely is hard to break out of that mentality after so many years of success. I wish your S the best, and regardless of the outcome, I hope he recalls his high school years fondly. I’m sure after college is over and he’s enjoying his adult life, all this would really be just color and experience that he can wisely share with his family and friends.
@Ollie113 - Yes that sounds right. That is the criteria that was in place for our school district for my DD2016. (I forgot about the professional certification avenue!). Our district switched it up a bit last year and this year the distinction is related to whether or not you completed the endorsements for the foundation plan, or something like that, so basically just about everyone since they push the kids to choose to do the endorsements.
DD2018 did 4x4 for her endorsement but I think she is technically qualified for 2 other endorsements as well. Our guidance counselor did say that the endorsements and distinguished designation doesn’t really matter much to colleges, they don’t really pay attention to it, as it is really just a Texas thing.
I don’t know if it matters or not, I do know it mattered in our house because DD2018 wanted to beat DD2016, who was cum laude cords with distinguished achievement medal, NHS stole, NEHS cords and Mu Alpha Theta cords. DD2018 just squeezed by her sister with the magna cum laude cords, NHS stole, NEHS cords, Mu Alpha Theta cords, Rho Kappa Cords and NSHS cords. She was sad to not get a distinguished medal because in her head it was all about who walked down the aisle with the most bling her or her sister, lol.
Also, consider how athletics plays into the class rank game. At D’s school, students get one unweighted class period for varsity swim. For a big chunk of the school year, they do an hour of morning practice before school (minimum of two a week), then 2.5 hours of swimming in the afternoons (7th hour plus 1.5 hours), every school day. THEN they have meets in the evenings and on weekends, say 15-18 total, many of them out of town. I know that it doesn’t make sense to consider an athletic activity equal to an extra rigorous academic class, but I’m sad that kids are essentially penalized class rank-wise for taking on suck a massive time-suck. These committed athletes who can still pull off a good GPA in rigorous classes are rock stars. They are disciplined, have killer time management skills, and know how to work together with their peers, even though their class rank may stink. I guess this is where the “holistic review” thing comes into play, and thank goodness it does.
@Kayak24 Oops sorry. I’ll bet my reading comprehension score on the SAT, if taken today, would be about 0. Maybe less than zero. Now if the SAT had a sarcasm section, then 800! But I digress.
Back to your original question. The earliest scores have come out has been 5 AM EST. I know I’ve clicked on page “refresh” once or twice at 2 AM PST. >:D<
I love having the val speak and then allowing a peer choosen speaker too.
Wow @DiotimaDM I’m floored by that! I’m sorry - an honors class or AP class does not just mean Math, Science, etc. to me and they should not be unweighted. I would be fighting that. But our district is very well known for their music program so the parents are way more about music than academics here - in a school of 1200 we have 225 kids in marching band and only about 12 in the STEM program. All three levels of music (orchestra, choir and band) have honors level classes and Art has 2 AP classes. (I think there are honors too but I’m not sure). I think that is awful - and shame on those parents. I hate that kind of behavior as well.
@chippedtoof Thank you - and believe me, he is way more laid back about this than I am. Yes, he wants it, yes he would be disappointed but it wouldn’t crush him. (now not getting in to his dream school, well… 
) He is graduating the same HS I did where I was a middle of the road, totally lazy student and my only EC was Concert choir and that was only because all my friends were in music. He suffers from social anxiety so while he has a few good friends, a full social life has avoided him, he is well liked and he’s had an amazing HS career. Class Pres 3 years running, now SC pres; Concertmaster in Orchestra - and this year the marching band needed a violin soloist and though he was terrified of disappointing them, he said yes - I just watched him stand on the field at MetLife Stadium and play before hundreds of people. And this was after he was asked to be part of the first ever student panel at the NJEA convention facilitated by Ilyasah Shabazz. Sorry - this is coming off as one big Mom brag but he really has had just a full, fun, amazing HS experience. This would be a bummer but he’d be ok.
@S18D20mom Hi there, my daughter is top 13% in her high school. How do you know if the high school is a highly competitive Texas school? TIA!
You’re allowed to Mom brag here, @MomtoCon. He sounds like a terrific young man!
@Kayak24 I’ve looked around 8 am (I am eastern) and it’s always been posted by then.