NationStates Jolt Archive

Today was the election day for the school's Valedictorian. There where three groups of candidates: A guy and a girl, two girls, and a lone girl. Everyone's orginal plan was just to come in and vote for the guy (and getting his girl partner elected too), but the admin made us listen to their speeches. They were pretty good two, the lone girls speech was actually a self written poem. I found that in the end the speeches were too close to call, and ended up voting for them in order of how much I was friends with them (the school had us rank them to avoid a tie). I ended up voting guy and girl, two girls, thenlone girl (pft, poetry). The other canditates were actually pissed off because they knew it would just turn into a popularity contest. Seeing as my school has a 7:1 guy to girl ratio, and we have still somewhat held onto that gender segrigation from elementary school, it left the guy with a considerable lead even before the speeches were made. The guy's friends went around recruting people to vote for him. The guy probably had enough guaranteed votes to win without picking up votes during the speech. If you are wondering why I am just saying guy and not guy and girl, it is because thats how it was thought of. Many people did not know that guy was running with girl until his speech.

Anyways, was you school's Valedictorian election a total gong show, or was it fair and unbiased?

Edit: sorry for the lack of formatting.

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but what on earth is a Valid Victorian?

What's a vaild victorian? And how do you verify the validity of the victorian? Dress habits? Speech? What?

You can vote for them? I thought they went by GPA.

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but what on earth is a Valid Victorian?
A title that says you are the best that your grad class had to offer. Looks very good on a resume.

A title that says you are the best that your grad class had to offer. Looks very good on a resume.


I sure hope they arent graduating you. A disgrace to the canadian educational system.

You can vote for them? I thought they went by GPA.
That's Valedictorian, we're talking about something called a valid victorian.

You can vote for them? I thought they went by GPA.
Well, if they did that you would have some nerd who is much nervus to do the speech, and probably quite unable to write a terrific speech.

...
Victoria, British Columbia?

A title that says you are the best that your grad class had to offer. Looks very good on a resume.
Err... do you mean a valedictorian? Or does your school actually call it a Valid Victorian?

Anyway, my high school didn't do the whole valedictorian/salutatorian thing. But I understand that schools that do, generally base it off more academic things (GPA, SAT/ACT scores, number of AP/IB courses taken, etc). Didn't know you could vote on it.

I dont even know what a 'Valid Victorian' is. Unless its someone you can prove was alive during the reign of queen victoria.

That's Valedictorian, we're talking about something called a valid victorian.
I mean Valedictorian. I had never actually seen the word written before, so I broke the word up.

Err... do you mean a valedictorian? Or does your school actually call it a Valid Victorian?

Anyway, my high school didn't do the whole valedictorian/salutatorian thing. But I understand that schools that do, generally base it off more academic things (GPA, SAT/ACT scores, number of AP/IB courses taken, etc). Didn't know you could vote on it.


Maybe this is a special school that turns out people that write words like "valid victorian" and "nervus."

If they went by academics, no one would qualify.

Well, if they did that you would have some nerd who is much nervus to do the speech, and probably quite unable to write a terrific speech.
I would assume then that they would no longer be a valedictorian, but a graduation speaker. They could possibly be a Valid Victorian though. :p

Since when do you vote for validictorian? I thought you voted for homecoming queen and crap like that, not for who had the best GPA

Maybe this is a special school that turns out people that write words like "valid victorian" and "nervus."
Don't look at me, NERV-US is a branch under NERV-UN and not related to this school. ;)

Maybe this is a special school that turns out people that write words like "valid victorian" and "nervus."

If they went by academics, no one would qualify.
Ouch, so maybe I am a total science nerd who has no understanding of grammer, spelling, or literary devices. Whacha gonna do 'bout it?

Tell you to program a spell checker?

Tell you to program a spell checker?
And how is that gonna work? Remember, I cannot spell.:p

Besides, both of the word I used were real words.

Don't look at me, NERV-US is a branch under NERV-UN and not related to this school. ;)
I didn’t realize how much your nation name fucking pwnd until just now.:eek:

Hrm... true.

Tell you what, I'l get back to you witha solution when I sober up

Ouch, so maybe I am a total science nerd who has no understanding of grammer, spelling, or literary devices. Whacha gonna do 'bout it?


Put you in a concentration camp.

Put you in a concentration camp.
O wow, dying! Isn't that going to help me learn to spell!

Since when do you vote for validictorian? I thought you voted for homecoming queen and crap like that, not for who had the best GPA
I agree. But there is sometimes a lot of politics. Last year at my kids school they had co-validictorians because the children of two influencial people came close. It would have depended on counting weighted classes. So the loser protested about using GPA instead of ABC.

Well, if they did that you would have some nerd who is much nervus to do the speech, and probably quite unable to write a terrific speech.

I beg to differ. I was valedictorian at my high school, and no one had any complaints about my speech. I was nervous, yes, but I made it through.

The salutatorian did fine as well, and had a very interesting speech.

And I see no use whatsoever in having people vote for valedictorian. In fact, it pretty much devalues the title immediately. You can't say, "This is the best person our school has to offer because we voted on it," and expect colleges or companies to give a shit.

And I see no use whatsoever in having people vote for valedictorian. In fact, it pretty much devalues the title immediately. You can't say, "This is the best person our school has to offer because we voted on it," and expect colleges or companies to give a shit.

My high school managed to make the title worthless without voting. When my sister graduated, she was one of six students, all female, who met the valedictorian requirements. Rather than choose based on grades or GPA, they had six valedictorians that year. The principal, who had to meet the righteous indignation of my parents and the parents of the five other candidates, claimed that this was to avoid making anyone feel like their effort had been worth nothing. He never did have a good sense for irony.

What's the difference between a valedictorian and salutatorian?

My high school managed to make the title worthless without voting. When my sister graduated, she was one of six students, all female, who met the valedictorian requirements. Rather than choose based on grades or GPA, they had six valedictorians that year. The principal, who had to meet the righteous indignation of my parents and the parents of the five other candidates, claimed that this was to avoid making anyone feel like their effort had been worth nothing. He never did have a good sense for irony.

I always thought that requirements for valedictorian were fairly standard. At my school, you had to be getting at least a college-prep diploma and you had to have the highest GPA in your graduating class. That was pretty much it. Second highest was Salutatorian. Top 10% were all recognized separately during the ceremony.

I always thought that requirements for valedictorian were fairly standard. At my school, you had to be getting at least a college-prep diploma and you had to have the highest GPA in your graduating class. That was pretty much it. Second highest was Salutatorian. Top 10% were all recognized separately during the ceremony.

These six had 4.0 GPA and at least 6 hours of AP credit, I think. The actual AP hours requirement escapes me at the moment, but they all met it. My sister had 15 hours, the next highest was 9, and the rest had six each. Our salutatorian is usually the next highest, but since none of the six would give up the top spot, and the principal wouldn't force anyone to give it up, we had the seventh best student of that class as salutatorian. We've never had top 10% recognition, but it sounds like a good idea.

These six had 4.0 GPA and at least 6 hours of AP credit, I think. The actual AP hours requirement escapes me at the moment, but they all met it. My sister had 15 hours, the next highest was 9, and the rest had six each. Our salutatorian is usually the next highest, but since none of the six would give up the top spot, and the principal wouldn't force anyone to give it up, we had the seventh best student of that class as salutatorian. We've never had top 10% recognition, but it sounds like a good idea.

Well, maybe they should change the requirements a bit. If numerical grades are given, then the GPA could be calculated straight from that (ours were) instead of just a 4.0 basis. They could also give a tie to the person with the most AP classes, perhaps?

Well, maybe they should change the requirements a bit. If numerical grades are given, then the GPA could be calculated straight from that (ours were) instead of just a 4.0 basis. They could also give a tie to the person with the most AP classes, perhaps?

Those have been suggested, but as far as I know the system at that school is still broken. I graduated two years after my sister, and we had two valedictorians and two salutatorians that year (don't ask me how, because I have no idea). The teachers and administration usually have to balance out who is actually better against the threats from the family members of academically excellent students, and some of those are raving psychopaths. In a small town like the one I grew up in, some of those families have a lot of power, enough to make school officials ignore the best student in favor of the one whose family bitches the loudest. I'm just glad I'm out of that system.

I never did my homework and I was a total fuck-up who aced every test. Thus, I took myself out of the running. :p

On an interesting note, there was a national education competition called TEAMS. Our school sent a team of six students, two of which had to be underclassmen. Of the four seniors, Their class ranks were: 1(the Valedictorian), 2(Salutorian), 4(School Graduation Essayist winner) and 62(A lovable and wacky fuck-up with an incredibly intuitive mind).

Guess which one I was? :)

Well, if they did that you would have some nerd who is much nervus to do the speech, and probably quite unable to write a terrific speech.
I've graduated 3 times and set through many others. 6 months after graduation no one will be able to tell you one thing any speaker said anyway.

I'm chair to the school Academic Booster Club. We award "Honor Cords" to each student that takes at least three classes in an academic subject area and gets an "A" in every class in the subject area. (Communications, Fine Arts, Math, Physical Education, Practical Arts, Science, Social Studies) That way no matter where a students talent is they get an honor to wear at graduation. Some get five cords some one, some none. But it does give everyone a chance.

My high school managed to make the title worthless without voting. When my sister graduated, she was one of six students, all female, who met the valedictorian requirements. Rather than choose based on grades or GPA, they had six valedictorians that year. The principal, who had to meet the righteous indignation of my parents and the parents of the five other candidates, claimed that this was to avoid making anyone feel like their effort had been worth nothing. He never did have a good sense for irony.

Eh. We had a graduating class of about 200. . .22 of which were valedictorians. Oh, the joys of taking a crapload of weightlifting classes in a system with no scale adjustment or weighted average. . .

My sister was the valedictorian for her graduating class. Here they vote for who will give the valedictory address, it is not based solely on marks. She did a super job, too.

A lot of people erroneously called her "Valid Victorian" too.

My sister was the valedictorian for her graduating class. Here they vote for who will give the valedictory address, it is not based solely on marks. She did a super job, too.

A lot of people erroneously called her "Valid Victorian" too.

She might have given a wonderful speech, but the title itself means next-to-nothing. It basically means, "I was popular enough to get people to vote for me at my school." Well, whoop-de-doo.

For my graduating class (which was in BC, just like Posi, although admittedly 17 years ago!) there was a small pool of valedictorian candidates, all with the highest possible grade point averages. Teachers then scrutinized them for other things, such as extracurricular activities, as well as deciding whether any of the candidates would be just too embarrassing to represent the school. Such as weeding out a purple-haired punkette that they felt they couldn't guarantee would behave 'appropriately' at the podium, despite her excellent grades and school participation.

Once the teachers had created a short-list of candidates, they allowed the student's council to select the valedictorian. Perhaps not surprisingly, the president of the student's council won. Still, he was deserving, perhaps not more deserving than the purple-haired chick or the other short listers, but definitely an excellent choice.

why in the world did they have team valedictorians chosen by popular vote rather than academic status? why 2 people? what if you hated one and loved the other? it doesnt make any sense to me.

shouldnt they recognize the top GPAs of the class and call the person who gives the big speech at graduation the "class representative" or something?

and y'all have way too big schools. if you had 100 students or fewer you wouldnt have such a problem with too many top ranked students.

and yes, your school just had a stupid gender driven popularity contest. it wasnt even a popularity contest, it was an exercise in male domination. not the way i would set up graduation speeches if i were in charge.

I never did my homework and I was a total fuck-up who aced every test. Thus, I took myself out of the running. :p

On an interesting note, there was a national education competition called TEAMS. Our school sent a team of six students, two of which had to be underclassmen. Of the four seniors, Their class ranks were: 1(the Valedictorian), 2(Salutorian), 4(School Graduation Essayist winner) and 62(A lovable and wacky fuck-up with an incredibly intuitive mind).

Guess which one I was? :)

That description sounds way too much like me for my comfort...

I never did my homework and I was a total fuck-up who aced every test. Thus, I took myself out of the running. :p

On an interesting note, there was a national education competition called TEAMS. Our school sent a team of six students, two of which had to be underclassmen. Of the four seniors, Their class ranks were: 1(the Valedictorian), 2(Salutorian), 4(School Graduation Essayist winner) and 62(A lovable and wacky fuck-up with an incredibly intuitive mind).

Guess which one I was? :)
Number 63?

This is a very strange valedictorian system.
I went to a public school (one of five in the city and outskirts) and every one of them went by GPA, and if there were multiple people with the highest GPA they were all valedictorians (and then everybody with the second-highest GPA was a salutatorian). The only difference between the schools was whether AP/Honors classes got weighted more or got a 1 point boost or whatever.
My school had 3 valedictorians (though if they'd counted the last semester [during which I got 1.5 B+s] there would have only been two [this is perhaps balanced out by the fact that we don't include standardized test scores or AP class weights]); the second-largest school (which had considerably richer students) had somewhere between 15 and 20.

Nope, it really didn't mean much to any of us.

I beg to differ. I was valedictorian at my high school, and no one had any complaints about my speech. I was nervous, yes, but I made it through.
Ok, at my school we would have a nerd that lacks all social skills.

And I see no use whatsoever in having people vote for valedictorian. In fact, it pretty much devalues the title immediately. You can't say, "This is the best person our school has to offer because we voted on it," and expect colleges or companies to give a shit.
But, the thing is, if a company or college wants the person with the best GPA, they can look at the person's transcript, could they not? The valedictorian is supposed to be the student who has proven themself to be the best candidate the school has to offer, and surely there are thing besides grade that need to be considered.

This is a very strange valedictorian system.
I went to a public school (one of five in the city and outskirts) and every one of them went by GPA, and if there were multiple people with the highest GPA they were all valedictorians (and then everybody with the second-highest GPA was a salutatorian). The only difference between the schools was whether AP/Honors classes got weighted more or got a 1 point boost or whatever.
My school had 3 valedictorians (though if they'd counted the last semester [during which I got 1.5 B+s] there would have only been two [this is perhaps balanced out by the fact that we don't include standardized test scores or AP class weights]); the second-largest school (which had considerably richer students) had somewhere between 15 and 20.

Nope, it really didn't mean much to any of us.

Out of curiosity, do these schools all calculate GPA on a letter-grade basis?

If schools used (as mine did) numerical grades (out of 100), then there would be less of these co-valedictorians and co-salutatorians.

Hell, there were probably 10 or so people in my graduating class with a 4.0, the difference between valedictorian and salutatorian was something like the difference between a 99.89 and a 99.78.


But, the thing is, if a company or college wants the person with the best GPA, they can look at the person's transcript, could they not?

No. The transcript says nothing at all about the performance of other students.

The valedictorian is supposed to be the student who has proven themself to be the best candidate the school has to offer, and surely there are thing besides grade that need to be considered.

Perhaps. But "how many votes the person can get" has nothing at all to do with their ability as a student. Grades are pretty much the best measure we have of a student's ability in high school. Other things that might be included would be extracurricular activity participation, the level of classes taken (ie. AP courses), or maybe even SAT score (although there was a separate award at my school for that).

The valedictorian is supposed to be the student who has proven themself to be the best candidate the school has to offer, and surely there are thing besides grade that need to be considered.Fair enough, but should popularity really rank among those attributes?

Out of curiosity, do these schools all calculate GPA on a letter-grade basis?
Yes. Calculating by actual percentage would probably reduce ties...but on the other hand, do we really want to make it even easier for the permanently-in-gym crowd with 100% to win out over the lots-of-AP-classes crowd with an impressive 94%?
But, the thing is, if a company or college wants the person with the best GPA, they can look at the person's transcript, could they not? The valedictorian is supposed to be the student who has proven themself to be the best candidate the school has to offer, and surely there are thing besides grade that need to be considered.
The ability to win a popularity contest is not often indicative of what kind of employee you'll be. The fact that you were the first in your class (not just somebody with good grades, but actually the one who worked to be first) does tell them something.

Fair enough, but should popularity really rank among those attributes?
Well, the person shouldn't be someone with negative popularity. The qualities that the person has that gives them negative popularity probably shouldn't be qualities your valedictorian should have.

But, if you exclude students from the vote, you are left with just the teachers and admin (who also got to vote). The admin would know too much about how each candidate acts in the classroom. All the valedictorian candidates usually have strong acquaintanceships with many of their teachers; what would stop the teachers from voting for the student they are "friends" with?

I never did my homework and I was a total fuck-up who aced every test. Thus, I took myself out of the running. :p
That is the same boat I'm in. I have only donetwo homework assignments in my physics class, but have an A in it. The teacher also does cumulative testing, so you have to know everything you have learned all year.

On an interesting note, there was a national education competition called TEAMS. Our school sent a team of six students, two of which had to be underclassmen. Of the four seniors, Their class ranks were: 1(the Valedictorian), 2(Salutorian), 4(School Graduation Essayist winner) and 62(A lovable and wacky fuck-up with an incredibly intuitive mind).

Guess which one I was? :)
Number 4?:p

Yes. Calculating by actual percentage would probably reduce ties...but on the other hand, do we really want to make it even easier for the permanently-in-gym crowd with 100% to win out over the lots-of-AP-classes crowd with an impressive 94%?

The ability to win a popularity contest is not often indicative of what kind of employee you'll be. The fact that you were the first in your class (not just somebody with good grades, but actually the one who worked to be first) does tell them something.
Clever weighting.


Our school ranks based upon percentage points, then makes some adjustments for the AP kids. Not that the AP kids (the good ones anyway) really need adjustment.

No valedictorians/salutatorians in my high school. But then, my school was pretty small (there were 50-ish kids in my graduating class) so it probably wouldn't have meant much anyway. My school also didn't tell you your GPA unless you went and asked the guidance counselor to calculate it, same for your class rank. We did have awards for the best student in a subject area (one for math, one for history, one for english, etc), and community service awards, etc. But that was about it. Of course, my high school was in Europe, and as far as I know the only students who ever cared about GPA and class rank were those applying to universities in the US.

Our school ranks based upon percentage points, then makes some adjustments for the AP kids. Not that the AP kids (the good ones anyway) really need adjustment.
The weighted GPAs of AP students are ridiculous. I remember back when I was applying for college, the system a few schools had me use to calculate my GPA gave me a GPA somewhere in the realm of a 4.7. What the heck is the point? :rolleyes:

Yes. Calculating by actual percentage would probably reduce ties...but on the other hand, do we really want to make it even easier for the permanently-in-gym crowd with 100% to win out over the lots-of-AP-classes crowd with an impressive 94%?

There are ways around that. Tests in AP classes at my high school received a 10-point bonus. Thus, if you would have normally made a B on the test, you got an A, and so on and so forth. The idea was to keep a possible fall in grades from discouraging students from taking the upper-level classes.