APS Valedictorians

[Anonymous]

Someone posted in another thread that
"our zoned APS high school already had 240 Valedictorians (all ranked #1) last year out of ~600 students." Is this the norm for APS? And is it the norm regionally/nationally? My kids are in middle and elem school so I'm not familiar with this but curious about how this all affects college admissions.

[Anonymous]

I doubt that it affects admissions at all. Many HS's no longer rank at all. APS just takes this kind of odd IMO middle road of not ranking any students with a 4.0+ GPA but giving everyone below 4.0 a rank #. It's to cut down on cut-throat competition. Anyone who gets a 4.0+ gets a rank=1 on their transcript and they are all noted in the program as "valedictorians". APS doesn't have a traditional singular valedictorian/salutatorian. A student will speak at the graduation but that's based on some kind of competition, I think? or nomination by teachers?

I suppose for a college that doesn't pay much attention to the school profile a student reporting a rank of "1" even if they really are just in the top third of the class might be helpful? I know DD (who just barely made the 4.0 level) felt weird putting rank=1 on her common app. But the alternative was to say the school doesn't rank while her transcript clearly does provide a rank.

[Anonymous]

4.0 weighted or unweighted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I doubt that it affects admissions at all. Many HS's no longer rank at all. APS just takes this kind of odd IMO middle road of not ranking any students with a 4.0+ GPA but giving everyone below 4.0 a rank #. It's to cut down on cut-throat competition. Anyone who gets a 4.0+ gets a rank=1 on their transcript and they are all noted in the program as "valedictorians". APS doesn't have a traditional singular valedictorian/salutatorian. A student will speak at the graduation but that's based on some kind of competition, I think? or nomination by teachers?

I suppose for a college that doesn't pay much attention to the school profile a student reporting a rank of "1" even if they really are just in the top third of the class might be helpful? I know DD (who just barely made the 4.0 level) felt weird putting rank=1 on her common app. But the alternative was to say the school doesn't rank while her transcript clearly does provide a rank.

OP here. This was really informative and helps me better understand the threads I lurk on about trying to differentiate yourself on college apps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4.0 weighted or unweighted?

4.0 + weighted = rank 1

[Anonymous]

One Admissions director joked about the 200+ Valedictorians in NoVA public HS. They are well-aware the rank 1 means absolutely zero in these big NoVA high schools.

He made a point to say they know what is offered at each high school (some have no APs or less AP offerings, etc) and they know about grade inflation and high school rigor, etc.

Basically, they take that info with a grain of salt. I think these publics are shooting themselves in the foot and the more they dumb everyone down and allow retakes and 300 Valedictorians, the less rigorous the schools will be rated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One Admissions director joked about the 200+ Valedictorians in NoVA public HS. They are well-aware the rank 1 means absolutely zero in these big NoVA high schools.

He made a point to say they know what is offered at each high school (some have no APs or less AP offerings, etc) and they know about grade inflation and high school rigor, etc.

Basically, they take that info with a grain of salt. I think these publics are shooting themselves in the foot and the more they dumb everyone down and allow retakes and 300 Valedictorians, the less rigorous the schools will be rated.

^^ in the sake of 'equity for all'. Everyone gets an 'A' eventually, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One Admissions director joked about the 200+ Valedictorians in NoVA public HS. They are well-aware the rank 1 means absolutely zero in these big NoVA high schools.

He made a point to say they know what is offered at each high school (some have no APs or less AP offerings, etc) and they know about grade inflation and high school rigor, etc.

Basically, they take that info with a grain of salt. I think these publics are shooting themselves in the foot and the more they dumb everyone down and allow retakes and 300 Valedictorians, the less rigorous the schools will be rated.

So considering all that, and then also considering that most colleges now are "test optional" or even test blind--what criteria are colleges using to admit students?

[Anonymous]

Plenty of high schools don't rank at all so I don't have an issue with APS schools not ranking. Where they sound silly is calling all in the top tier of students "valedictorians", that's what gets the eye-rolls. You could still call them out in some other way at graduation like summa or magna cum laude. That's the only place the term really comes up. Just say you don't rank and don't have a valedictorian. Not sure why you need to report ranks for student #220 etc. for those who didn't make it into the 4.0+ tier.

[Anonymous]

Yes. One of my kids graduated in 2021. Over half the class was a valedictorian. 240 of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One Admissions director joked about the 200+ Valedictorians in NoVA public HS. They are well-aware the rank 1 means absolutely zero in these big NoVA high schools.

He made a point to say they know what is offered at each high school (some have no APs or less AP offerings, etc) and they know about grade inflation and high school rigor, etc.

Basically, they take that info with a grain of salt. I think these publics are shooting themselves in the foot and the more they dumb everyone down and allow retakes and 300 Valedictorians, the less rigorous the schools will be rated.

So considering all that, and then also considering that most colleges now are "test optional" or even test blind--what criteria are colleges using to admit students?

Holistic measures.

[Anonymous]

Ranking system is absurd. But don’t worry about it, admissions counselors know what’s what and will have the right perspective.

[Anonymous]

Just think how those poor ~360 students must feel. They should all be ranked #2 and given the title Salutatorian then everyone will feel good.

[Anonymous]

By the time a student is named valedictorian, they were accepted/rejected into their colleges months prior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the time a student is named valedictorian, they were accepted/rejected into their colleges months prior.

It comes up because when any student with a 4.0+ submits their transcript with applications, it shows a rank=1.

DD was very mindful of this during a lot of struggles in junior year. She just barely squeeked into the 4.0. Just slightly lower and her transcript would have a rank in the 200s vs. a rank=1. yes, colleges look at the overall classes and individual grades but she didn't want the 200s rank. I think they should just not report rank at all.

The term 'valedictorians" only comes up at graduation and I don't know why people fixate on that. But, as PP said, they could just label the 4.0+ group something else like "magna cum laude"