Where do valedictorians from “meh” schools go?

[Anonymous]

We moved to a small college city (about 50k locals, grows to about 65k with the state university kids). My DD is on track to be valedictorian of her public HS class. This is not as impressive as it sounds. Almost all kids who are UMC here or a professor kid goes to the local private - the top kids from there go to places like Cornell, Michigan, Wisconsin, not many SLAC since kids here don’t know what Bates/bowdoin/Colby even are. We are sending our kids to public school for a variety of reasons. The top kids from the school (graduating classes of about 250) typically go to the state university honors program or another state university that has tuition reciprocity discounts for our region. DH and I went to fairly highly ranked schools (both non Ivy top 20s) and would love for our daughter to go somewhere like Georgetown, UVA, Hopkins, rice etc. At the end of sophomore year she is ranked number 1 in her class, straight As in honors courses (one A- in freshman math). This has not been hard or challenging for her at all. She’s taking all APs next year and will do the same senior year. It’s too early to say if it will still be manageable to have straight As, but it’s a definite possibility. She is a varsity athlete, but again, this is a random town and sports aren’t competitive - swimming and tennis everyone makes varsity, she won’t be recruited but may be a captain. She also does some very focused community service with the Native American community in our area and volunteers at the college art museum. Would a kid with this profile have a shot at the top 20 colleges now a days? I can say with confidence she would not stand out in the DMV - she was at a private in DC for elementary school - 7th grade and was a very average student. It’s just so much less competitive here I think it was a confidence boost. We’d be fine sending her to the flagship state school as well, but we would love for her to have a top 20 college experience. We will have SAT tutoring and hopefully her scores would be competitive, at least above the median. We are full pay but otherwise not special.

[Anonymous]

At the very least, geography should help her. A friend’s son who was the valedictorian of his small school in TN is going to a good private on merit. The mom was very surprised that they courted him.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends a bit on the state, the scores and the kid. For example, your kid in Montana or Alaska or any state that doesn't produce tons of kids to a specific elite school will have an edge. If your kid scores high on standardized tests, they will probably do well in admissions. One other thing: your kid has a great opportunity to stand out by looking for activities outside the school. Anyway, I could be wrong but my kid went to a top 5 lac and there were kids like this from states that didn't send kids to top schools. They were invariably #1 or #2 in their class, though, and had often won awards or had some specific interesting background.

[Anonymous]

I went to a top 25 university and my roommate was from a small town and had straight A's. I was impressed until I realized in the small town, just showing up and doing your work earned you an A. He failed out after the first semester -- one D and the rest F's. Couldn't handle the rigor of the engineering curriculum.

[Anonymous]

We live in a town that is similar to the one you describe, and the Valedictorian of the school my DC attended went to Hopkins. The Valedictorian from the year before went to Columbia.

As pps have noted, if anything, it's probably a benefit.

[Anonymous]

If there’s a field of study she is interested in for college then have her volunteer in that field or get a job in an office that specializes in the field. Even if she’s just answering the phones it shows that she’s invested time into learning something from the ground up and isn’t afraid to work hard doing it.

If she’s not interested in a specific field yet then keep doing volunteer work outside of the school

[Anonymous]

That’s a lot of words.

[Anonymous]

IF they can afford it and have the ECs wherever they want, otherwise the state flagship

[Anonymous]

We live in a rural county that has three high schools. The 3 valedictorians are going to Appalachian State, University of South Carolina, and Yale. I think that being valedictorian was a plus for the Yale admit, but more importantly, her test scores and ECs were also outstanding. Like pp said getting the high GPA isn’t tough at a mediocre school, but if your SAT and ECs match the GPA it puts you in a good position

[Anonymous]

I suspect some of it will come down to the recommendations. Will teachers say this student is one of the best they ever had, or will they say this student is the strongest from this year's class? If she is packaging grades, ECs, commitment to volunteer work, and strong recs, then she will look great for the schools you describe.

But apply broadly in any case.

[Anonymous]

They can go anywhere, but being valedictorian is not sufficient to get them in anywhere, as you know. I was about tenth in my class at a meh HS and got into Harvard. I think the valedictorian went to Michigan, maybe? It’s hard to remember. I don’t think a meh HS is a problem for college admissions, though it may not be a very inspiring experience while you’re attending.

[Anonymous]

I had a friend from Alaska at my East Coast college and she used to say she could have written her application on a paper napkin and got in. Geographic diversity matters

[Anonymous]

UVA, Yale, wherever they want. Better to be top of the class at a meh high school than 50th % of an amazing school. Do all the other things they want too: ECs, leadership, service. Get a high SAT score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top 25 university and my roommate was from a small town and had straight A's. I was impressed until I realized in the small town, just showing up and doing your work earned you an A. He failed out after the first semester -- one D and the rest F's. Couldn't handle the rigor of the engineering curriculum.

take this lesson to heart OP.

I was the whiz kid in my small town, only instead of an athlete I was full-on nerd: Quiz bowl, student body president, eagle scout, even took the ACT and got a 33 as a 9th grader.

I was the BIG FISH in my small town, with a Meh school, and not even a college town which skews way higher on income/education levels for similar sized towns.

But then I went to college (Ivy league) and it was crushing hard, demoralizing, and kind of screwed me up for life. I didn't want try after that, because I was so far behind that doing what my classmates did would take so much more effort to catch up. I graduated, with like a B-/C average in a science major, so not quite as bad as this story, but my career has ended up 100% similar to where I would be if I went to my state university and done the honors program there (my Fed job has tons of similar whiz kids from rural places who went to Penn State, VT, etc).

one advantage your kid has over me and probably this PP's roommate -- educated and informed parents. My parents assumed getting into an Ivy set me for life, and literally had no idea or guidance for major or career or anything after my Sr year in high school. the only advisors I had was my academic advisor assigned by the school, and he pushed me to go to grad school because I happened to be kind of good at one niche of my major, which was a bad fit because by the time I had managed 4 years of barely staying above water, I was just DONE with school by year 5 and dropped out and took the first job I could find.

I would recommend you focus on having your kid attend the flagship university of your home state, and do the honors program. think of it like a cheap prep school. There is no need to finish education by 22, your DD will have a great experience as a top student at her public university, and mature, grow, and then likely have really good grad/professional school options and really do well. Granted, BigLaw level law schools or med school may not be on the table then, that is why so many people strive for the Ivy in the first place, but honestly with a lackluster high school education, only someone truly exceptional would have that path on the table anyways.

[Anonymous]

I think people overestimate the importance of valedictorian.

The valedictorian is almost certainly one of the strongest students in the school, but it's also a student who played the game by the rules, because it has to do with the percentage of classes that are weighted. The way MCPS weights, for example, a student who takes 4 honors, 2 AP classes and a study hall, for example, will have a higher weighted GPA than the kid who takes 6 AP classes and ceramics or a new foreign language.

At my school, the valedictorian is almost never the student with the most impressive college placement. They end up somewhere good, of course, but there are other kids who cared less about playing the GPA game and instead did the things they were passionate about, and did them well, and those are the kids who ended up at the very top.