Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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um, voting for valedictorian seems retarded to me. best grades should get valedictorian, funny speech can come from class president.

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This thread reminds me of the movie "Election." This girl set a goal and played within the rules to get it. Good for her. Whether this means she is a better student, etc. than the runners' up is irrelevant. She has proven the best at being the valedictorian, and nothing more.

Of course:

We clearly need a playoff. I know the BCS puts the top candidates into contention for valedictiorian and in theory gives us the true valedictorian on paper, but often some of the stronger candidates can be left out.

Getting a "B" or "C" in frehsman year often takes you out of the running, even if you rebound into form your junior or senior year. In other words, rather than scheduling cupcakes classes from lower divisions, some students are penalized for scheduling challenging classes which may give them a lot more education and demand much more performance, even where they only score a "B."

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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best grades should get valedictorian

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but whyyyyy?

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

I always assumed Valedictorian assumed academic superiority so voting on it seems strange. Voting would shaft the quiet students, imo.

If her purpose of being valedictorian is to get into the best college possible she probably played the system wrong as most colleges account for courses taken and have a weighted GPA standards in its admissions policies. If she's going for personal glory I guess she got there in her eyes.

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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Voting would shaft the quiet students, imo.


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And give the advantage to the ones that are likely to make a good speech? k i'll stop now

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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Voting would shaft the quiet students, imo.


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And give the advantage to the ones that are likely to make a good speech? k i'll stop now

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I'm not sure whether you ever got started.

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

Definitely.

I can't imagine giving a crap about some student's speech, either. That's also the part of beauty contests I space out during. Which I thought being valedictorian was supposed to have no parallels with.

Is the next step giving out valedictorian status on the basis of who demonstrates the most self esteem?

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

Her parents are idiots for not explaining to her that nobody cares what you did in high school when your real life starts (adulthood)

Seriously, what adult out there cares if some person they meet graduated first in their class? (Getting grades and SAT scores for college do have some obvious merit of course.)

This is something that to a 14 year old seems important but her parents should be wise enough to know that in the long run it's fairly meaningless. I suspect that like many parents these days they will do anything to please their children regardless of any control or rational thought.

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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Definitely.

I can't imagine giving a crap about some student's speech, either. That's also the part of beauty contests I space out during. Which I thought being valedictorian was supposed to have no parallels with.

Is the next step giving out valedictorian status on the basis of who demonstrates the most self esteem?

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Just want to clear one thing up. At my graduation ceremony, one student made a speech, the valedictorian. The valedictorian had 0 other responsibilities and did absolutely nothing else other than make the speech. If this is the case everywhere, I do not understand one of two things:

- Why does the valedictorian selection process have nothing to do with speech delivering ability? Not to say that this should be all of it, but shouldn't it be considered?

- Why does the valedictorian make a speech? If it's just an honour given to the student with the highest marks, what is the point of them making a speech?

As I see it, the valedictorian should be a good representative of the graduating class, that is their main purpose imo.

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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The school has done the other students a disservice by not weighting AP classes.

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Agreed.

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Her parents have done her a disservice by not insisting she work to her capabilities.

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No, there's nothing wrong with someone playing the game differently than you think it should be played.

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They had an opportunity to instill character and did not.

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How? She worked hard to accomplish her goals. Her goals just happened to be different from other people's goals. Seems to me she has plenty of "character".


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She has done herself a disservice by not acquiring the knowledge available to her.

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Knowledge? High school? LOL

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The additional knowledge that she did not acquire would have served her well in her next level of schooling.

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Not really. Being valedictorian will serve her better. What she really missed out on, which you failed to mention, was free college credits from AP classes. As such, she's going to end up taking those classes anyway and getting all that "knowledge" you think she's missing out on.

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Her next level of education will be that much harder because of this.

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True, like one additional semester. Not much really over the coarse of one's life and being valedictorian is something she'll probably treasure more throughout her life than having to take an additional semester of college.

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She is the Barry Bonds of class ranking, she deserves an asterisk on the program.

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This is just retarded. She didn't do anything questionable to get what she got. It's the system that's questionable, not her actions.

Re: I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior
 

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best grades should get valedictorian

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but whyyyyy?

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Because that's what it is. If you want to make some other title/reward in addition to or intead of valedictorian, feel free.