21 Valedictorians

[linguist]

My university choices were locked in by then in any case, so being Valedictorian or not made no difference (and I don't think it makes a difference here, or if it does, I never paid it any attention)

Even if your university choices are already locked in, it can make a difference sometimes. For example, my state offers a full scholarship to any state university to one student (the valedictorian) from each public high school. If your university choice is one of the state universities (as mine was), being valedictorian can make a big difference in school funding. I'm honestly not sure how it would be handled in a case of multiple valedictorians such as in the OP.

For the record, I was not valedictorian, though I was top 5%, which also guarantees entry into any state university in my state.

[Jetfire]

True, I'm up in Canada, and my University choices were Acadia or Waterloo by that point. IIRC at Graduation I was leaning heavily to Acadia, but then I went to the Waterloo campus and went there instead.

I had a small scholarship from UW at that point, but it was one of the ones that are really hard to maintain, especially if you don't have a rock solid math foundation. I had it for a couple of terms and lost it, but was happy with what I ended up with. (The scholarship itself I earned from the UW National Math tests/competitions, and not due to Valedictorian status)

There were a few scholarships and grants and bursaries you could get for being Top at the school or Valedictorian, but most of them had other criteria for earning them so they got spread out a bit. (And as I said before I didn't pay attention to the politics; I was perfectly fine with Nicole getting some of them, but others apparently weren't from what I heard afterwards)

[Pixilated]

The problem I see with this is that the position of valedictorian is supposed to be something special. How special can it be when everybody and their brother is chosen to be valedictorian?

[Nekojin]

The problem I see with this is that the position of valedictorian is supposed to be something special. How special can it be when everybody and their brother is chosen to be valedictorian?

Devil's Advocate here for a moment - when the average school graduating class has grown significantly* over the past century, does it make sense to single out only one person per school?

* The growth has been staggering for a variety of reasons - from simple population growth to increased percentage of the population receiving an education**, to resistance to opening new schools. Many schools in California now have "temporary" classrooms permanently added to deal with an increased membership, but discussions of removing those to add additional schools is just plain rejected. The average high school size in 2000 was 752, which was a significant growth from even a decade prior.

** Approx. 10% a century ago, to 90% in recent years.

Source for figures: http://0-nces.ed.gov.opac.acc.msmc.edu/pubs93/93442.pdf

[Tanasi]

Locally the public schools are making changes and there will be only one Valedictorian and one Salutatorian. The private schools may or may not comply, regardless I kept my promise to my Mom and made sure "All the babies have a high school education."

[Gravekeeper]

Just because they aren't formal doesn't mean that the kids aren't being exposed to competition. (job interviews tend to be more subjective than objective, although some objective testing can be used)

Judging from that article a while back with recent college grads bringing their parents / cat / texting during an interview, I'd say, they aren't exposed enough anymore. -.-

[Andrew B]

My school had it explicitly written down in the student handbook, that, on the off chance that two or more students held the qualifications for Valedictorian, the title would be shared among them. Though, I doubt that there would be a chance for 21 holders of the title.

[fireheart17]

Judging from that article a while back with recent college grads bringing their parents / cat / texting during an interview, I'd say, they aren't exposed enough anymore. -.-

I'd blame helicopter parenting for the first two and a lack of manners/etiquette for the third.

[daleduke17]

Locally the public schools are making changes and there will be only one Valedictorian and one Salutatorian.

My high school had to do that after the 99 class had a total of seven valedictorians/salutatorians. The salutatorians were only deemed that after the school did something like four tiebreakers. They were like #AP Classes, GPA, attendance, etc. All seven were still too close to call.

[crashhelmet]

My youngest God Daughter graduated last week. her school had 5 valedictorians and 5 Salutatorians.

The way it was explained to me was the 5 Vals were all 4.0 unweighted for all 4 years of high school. The 5 Sals were 4.0 weighted for all 4 years.

I don't know if it was coincidentally only 5 each or what factors they used to take the 5. If I was Valedictorian #6 and lost out of at least Salutorian because I didn't meet the reqs, I'd be ticked

[s_stabeler]

probably was only 5 of each- if I had a 3.99 GPA ( not sure if that is possible, but you get the idea) I'd be a bit cross too!