Can We Stop Babying High School Seniors?

June 28, 2010     Posted in News, Reality

Those of you who recently graduated from high school might be familiar with the new trend in academic ranking: multiple valedictorians.  Say what? It’s true, in another attempt to placate everyone and their parents spread the love, school systems are recognizing arbitrary numbers of honored graduates- 7, 10, 23, 94- as valedictorians.  The New York Times reports there is no longer a Numero Uno when it comes to head of the class.


By Alex

All I can say is: Damn, I’m glad I graduated in simpler times when top student was a singular term and the position of Salutatorian existed to cushion the blow for the runner-up.  The rest of us, meanwhile, sat contently on the football field listening to the nostalgic speeches, mindlessly twirling our tassels, and comparing our graduation experience to that featured on Laguna Beach (oh, the good ol’ days).  When it was all said and done, we shed the requisite tears, hugged our friends, and posed for pictures with Mom and Dad.  That was it.  Graduation in a nutshell.

Attend the commencement ceremonies at some of our country’s high schools today and you’ll get an extra special treat when you realize your little cousin David isn’t the only valedictorian…he’s got the company of twelve other kids who were high rankers as well.  Just what exactly has given this trend steam?  Is it pushy parents all wanting their precious babies featured on stage?  Or are the students not wanting to admit defeat when a teeny fraction of a grade point stands in their way of glory?  Most importantly, why are school officials caving to this kind of obscene, irrational pressure?

I understand that parents love their kids and want the best for them.  More than that, I understand that parents are often competitive and overbearing people.  The types of folks pushing for their kids to be top of the class are also the ones who will be calling every five minutes once their beautiful children arrive on campus come September.  It’ll sound something like this: “Did you do you homework for Professor Levy?  How do I know him?  Oh, he and I just had a little chat after you skipped Monday’s lecture.  You know, if you want to make the Dean’s list, you’ll have to try a little harder to wake up for those early lessons.”  Mom and Dad aren’t going to be there forever, though, reminding you to keep on top of assignments and be all that you can be.  It’s a fact that one day you’ll have to break out on your own and fight your own fights.  Might as well start sooner rather than later.

As for the duties of valedictorian, those are being altered to fit the growing honorees, as well.  Historically, Mr. or Ms. V delivers a speech to send their fellow graduates into the future with a peppering of wisdom and memories.  It’s a sweet custom that has been accepted for hundreds of years…until now.  Jericho High School on Long Island changed things up for their seven honored seniors when they cut the speech portion of the ceremony, opting instead for a group skit.  A group skit? Umm, how old are we?  These are supposed to be the special kids, not the “special” kids.  Perhaps even worse, at Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey the speech deliverer was selected at random from the 30 “top” candidates.  I bet that kid felt special.

Before you lovely CollegeCandy readers jump all over me, I would like to say this:  I was never valedictorian, nor did I ever feel cheated out of the valedictorian spot.  That said, I was no dummy either.  Had my school included ten or fifteen students on stage, I very well may have been up there.  But looking back, I don’t think it would have meant the same as either a) being singled out as the top graduate or b) sitting in solidarity with the rest of my classmates in the audience.  You see, a group being awarded a title that traditionally has been reserved for a single person cheapens the title in my opinion.  At that point, I’d rather just own up to the fact that I didn’t quite make it and then move so I can enjoy the larger moment.

With all the recent heavy-handedness going on when it comes to academic recognition, what are these students going to do when they hit college and become (for better or worse) just a number?  Or how about when they’re looking for their first job post-grad?  Typically businesses aren’t looking to fill one position by hiring twenty employees.  Isn’t it just better to give teens a healthy dose of reality early on so they can adjust to the not-always-fair ways of the real world?  Placation can only send our generation so far, beyond that we need to [wo]man-up and quit whining.

28 Comments on "Can We Stop Babying High School Seniors?"

  1. Ruth says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 201011:10 am 

    The year I graduated, we had three valedictorians and five salutatorians, all of whom where girls. Yeah, those girls people were the best in our class, but having so many people recognized cheapened the honor of being selected. In addition, many of the guys who were near the top of our class questioned why a couple of more people couldn't have been selected to make the group more diverse and less gender-biased. The next year, we had four valedictorians and eight salutatorians, of both genders. Being one of eight or twelve people to speak at graduation isn't quite the same as being one of two.

  2. Brianna says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 201011:28 am 

    My high school definitely babied us and I graduated last year. We had exams, but the if you had an A you didn't have to take it. If you did have to take it, the exam would only be used if you got a letter grade higher than what your class average is. If you bombed an exam, it wouldn't hurt you. This was definitely challenging when I went off to college and the exams count for a large chunk of your grade or the entire grade.

    When it came to graduation speakers, the school eliminated valedictorian and salutatorian, instead the honor graduates pick two speakers (from a list of honor graduates). I probably would have been more prepared for college, if high school hadn't of held my hand the entire way. The only classes that I had that gave me a glimpse of what college would be like were dual enrollment English and AP US History.

  3. natty says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 201011:54 am 

    One of each is enough (valedictorian, salutatorian), if you ask me. Graduations last entirely too long already and more valedictorians/salutatorians means more speeches making the graduation even longer. I graduated from High School and College and listened to the same crap about how school was great and now we face the real world and we'll all do fantastic and blah blah blah…it's all the same idea in different words every time. I say just honor the top 5 people of the class and have each talk about their favorite experience (funny, sad, emotional) while at school because it would far more interesting than the typical "we're sad, we're leaving, but it's going to be great out there!" speech.

  4. anon says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20101:19 pm 

    I agree in theory, but everyone's missing one of the major reasons it's done: multiple students can end up with the exact same GPA. In that case, it's unfair not to give them all equal recognition.

  5. Emily says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20101:45 pm 

    My sister just graduated from high school and they recognized all 20 or so salutatorians and all 30 valedictorians. They did pull out the top ranked boy and honored him alone, but it was still kind of weird. At my high school graduation (as long ago as that seems), we recognized the top 10 at the ceremony, with one salutatorian and one valedictorian.

  6. Chloe says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20101:52 pm 

    When I graduated we had the top 10% and all of our speakers had to audition to give the speech; I liked that much better. One of the guys we had give the speech wasn't a superb student but he gave the most amazing speech. When it comes to the speeches, I think that's how it should be; the smartest kids aren't always the most eloquent nor inspiring. Plus, the "average" student is typically more well rounded and more people can relate to them, hence the "average" title hahah.

    When it comes to the valedictorian, I agree with anon; it should be those that are actually at the top. But it stems all the way from the beginning; a caste system begins in elementary school placing kids in tracks and is typically maintained. Until educators stop babying students and giving into pushy parents, not much is going to improve. That's part of the reason why so many students are unprepared for college.

    And a group skit…PASS.

    I understand where the school systems are coming from but at the end of the day, these students are becoming adults and they are just crippling them.

  7. Chelsea says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20102:44 pm 

    We only had one student speaker at my high school grad, the valedictorian. She was choosen by a commitee of like two teachers, the principals, an administrator and the SGA president. Anyone could audition for it, it was a competition that included a GPA part, how active you were in the school, your speech, and what you were doing after school. We had 8 people audition, and the girl that won was a well known, well liked, active student, who was able to talk about a number of different events and activities because she was so involved. My sister's school just chose the person who was number one, and she said that most students knew nothing about the valedictorian, and he only talked about what he had learnt in band, since that was the only thing he did in highschool. I much prefer the way my school went about it.

  8. Ashleigh says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20105:12 pm 

    I just graduated this spring and my school only had one valedictorian and one salutatorian, the way it should be. At a senior award ceremony the week before the top ten students were honored, which I think was nice. The top ten all have scary high/scary close GPAs and it was nice to honor them. On the big day (graduation day) only the top two gave speeches and were honored. I think that is a nice way to make everyone feel included but stick with tradition.

  9. Johnnie says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20105:37 pm 

    “Isn’t ‘One and Only’ like….One…and Only?”

  10. Kate says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20105:43 pm 

    I was one of ~40 “valedictorians” in my graduating class. The title was given to anyone with a GPA greater than 4.1. We have a large number of high achieving students in my school district, and to my knowledge, the multiple valedictorians thing came about because a “valedictorian” can have access to certain scholarships and have other advantages not available to others. When you have a large number of students who both do well and have inflated grades due to AP and honors class, why not denote multiple valedictorians? My best friend was the true number one ranked student in our class, and she had no problem with the fact that she wasn’t given special recognition. Had she wanted to give a speech at graduation, she could have auditioned to be our class speaker (an opportunity made available to all valedictorians). Sure my friend is an extremely smart girl, but her 4.7-something GPA was definitely in part the result of all the weighted classes she had taken throughout high school. Thus I think it’s only fair to have multiple students designated with that honor. I was ranked 19th in my class, with virtually all As, and I earned a B+ in a couple of my AP courses. But a student with no AP classes on his/her transcript, who had taken several honors classes and received all As could have been ranked higher than me. Obviously, it might vary from one school district to the next, but in my district, with the way our courses are weighed and GPAs are inflated, this seems to be the system that works best, and no one really has any complaints about it to the best of my knowledge.

  11. Lizzie says:
    Mon, 28th Jun 20106:18 pm 

    This makes me so glad my school didn’t rank! We didn’t even know our gpa’s until they were calculated so we could send them off with our college applications.
    Even if they did feel the need to pick out several valedictorians by the grades you got, that would be 90% of the class. I went to school with major over-achievers (myself included). It would just be downright stupid. We all know we worked hard and got good grades. We were rewarded by acceptance into the colleges of our choices. I don’t think any of us felt like we were missing out by not being announced at any point for our grades during graduation.
    I think it’s pretty lame to choose a bunch of “valedictorians.” It’s kind of like winning at a sporting event only to hear, “and we’re going to let these other people win WITH you.” Um, no.

  12. Lola says:
    Tue, 29th Jun 20101:15 am 

    This is just strange to me. My high school recognizes the top ten by giving them gold chords to wear and recognizing them in the program. The speeches at graduation go to #1, #2 and class president. More than needed in my opinion, but at least we knew why they were up there.

  13. Alex says:
    Tue, 29th Jun 20108:25 am 

    my high school was the biggest in Colorado… we had about 5 and i still thought that was crazy!

  14. Kat says:
    Tue, 29th Jun 20108:27 am 

    Or we could just solve this problem by letting schools do what mine and a number of my friends schools did and let students elect their valedictorian from the top ranked students… but wait, this would create a popularity contest and all the kids (read: parents) would be mad.

    Babying students like this is not going to help them later. Guess what? When you hit university and you're one of 300 students in a class, you'll be lucky if your professor knows your name and you definitely won't be getting cookies for being one of the 40 smartest students in your class.

  15. bebe says:
    Tue, 29th Jun 20102:14 pm 

    My (giant) high school didn't recognize any valedictorians or salutatorians. Rumor has it there was a scuffle over it a long time ago and a kid died over it… not sure if I believe that though. I think it's just because of the asinine grading system they use. My high school calculated your GPA with minuses counting as less than a regular letter grade. Unfortunately, this counted for the classes-that-shouldn't-be-classes, like running the school store or having an internship. That wasn't so bad, since it definitely thinned out the pool of top students (sometimes for crap reasons, like an otherwise 4.0 student who got an A- in student council or something). The REALLY unfair part was that they didn't weight APs or Honors classes, so some years the 'valedictorians' were people who took the easiest crap they could find, and the 'salutatorians' were the ones who took hard classes and got a couple of A-'s. My class's top 2 were definitely girls who would have deserved recognition had it been given, as were the next few students, but that wasn't the case for other classes, and let's be honest, I would not want to sit through the recognition of someone who put far less effort into academics than I did! It would have felt like they were cheating.

  16. Elle says:
    Tue, 29th Jun 20104:34 pm 

    My school "didn't rank". Everyone with a 4.0 got some sort of certificate but there was no valedictorian or salutorian. The person who gave the speech at graduation was the student council president. There's another way of eliminating angry parent complaints.

  17. Liz says:
    Thu, 1st Jul 20103:34 pm 

    There should be one valedictorian and salutatorian. MAYBE two, because ties in this matter are legitimate. Honestly, once you go beyond five your pool probably has unworthy candidates in it. To be a valedictorian or salutatorian is a BFD. Certainly, other students can be honored for their academic sucess–but that doesn't make them #1 or #2. Something along the lines of latin honors seems appropriate. Let them graduate "with distinction" but don't lie and say that they are the tip-top of their class.

  18. Kara says:
    Thu, 1st Jul 20106:33 pm 

    I see your point of view in what you against multiple valedictorians. But last year at my high school, we had one valedictorian two salutatorians because their GPAs were tied. I am not against multiple valedictorians or salutatorians if both have shown equal workmanship and it clearly shown in calculations. But to have multiple valedictorians due to a certain percentile is just a little absurd to me.

  19. Jade says:
    Sat, 3rd Jul 201012:43 pm 

    There were 7 valedictorians at my school this year. This was because we all had a 4.0 not because we were trying to include everyone. It wouldn't be fair to single someone out when we all deserved it. And no parents had anything to do with it, trust me. Althought I can see the point of letting the person who achieved the most get the recognition, there are other reasonable situations. Every school is different.

  20. Susan says:
    Mon, 5th Jul 20107:51 pm 

    I agree completely that students are being babied. The 'AP' classes of today were the 'regular' classes of 20 years ago. You kids have been dumbed down and down even realize it. 2 of my kids graduated from the top charter school in CO. One valedictorian and one salutatorian (and the salutatorian got more press in the local paper than the valedictorian did…I think she walks on water). They worked their butts off for it and the principal and teachers decide together when the GPAs are tied. Majority of the class was high honor roll and honor roll. They were reading books and discussing things that I didn't until my freshman year of college…and I'm envious. I received a stellar education (in 4 different high schools in 3 states), but their education outstrips mine.

  21. Jacilyn says:
    Fri, 9th Jul 20107:53 pm 

    I graduated this year, and was one of 6 valedictorians, with 2 salutatorians. Knowing that there would be many people speaking at graduation, it never hindered those of us who wanted to be at the top. We worked our asses off; we didn't get babied at all. In fact, the only reason we have more than one valedictorian is because the school is too lazy to put everything on a weighted GPA scale. If they had, it would've come down between me and another girl. The deciding point would be if AP History or Math Analysis counted more. So, at least at our school, the students definitely weren't the ones being babied; it was the school officials being too lazy to change from their archaic ways.

  22. Rebekah says:
    Wed, 14th Jul 201011:29 am 

    When I graduated in '07, there were 3 valedictorians and I was the only salutatorian. We all 4 gave speeches. At my high school we didn't weight any classes so all 3 of the valedictorians had a simple 4.0 GPA. I had a 3.98. The other stipulation was that you had to have "distinguished honors" which meant you had taken at least 9 (or some number) honors or AP classes. So at least the valedictorians were named so because they really had all tied, and not just from being in a top percentage or whatever.

    The next year they had 9 or so valedictorians, which I thought was a bit ridiculous, but if they all had the same GPA, then I think they should all be honored.

    I will say that I think high schoolers are being babied now, but I don't think the valedictorian issue is ranked too high on the being babied scale.

  23. Youn says:
    Fri, 16th Jul 20102:49 pm 

    "at Cherry Hill High School East in New Jersey the speech deliverer was selected at random from the 30 “top” candidates. I bet that kid felt special."

    actually one was randomly chosen from 9 valedictorians.

    i was a cherry hill east student.

  24. Chelsea says:
    Tue, 27th Jul 20103:43 pm 

    I graduated with 1,200 kids at a really competitive school, so I think its fair that we had 10 valedictorians and 10 salutatorians…

  25. Maddie says:
    Tue, 18th Jan 201110:30 am 

    You missed the actual reasoning behind multiple valedictorians. What if you have five people who all took every honors/AP class available and got a 4.0? How do you choose one person when they are all EQUALLY ranked?
    If somebody worked that hard throughout high school and succeeded, then they probably are self-motivated without their parents coddling them. The "helicopter" parents usually appear in students who are not getting the top grades.

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