This brings up another question: so we know it's possible now to graduate high school in three years. But why would you want to? For geniuses I get it, but to just get it over and done with, why would anyone push themselves/their teen to do it? By the time I was to my jr/sr year in high school, I wanted to enjoy every bit of time with my friends that I could.

At my high school it was required to have 2 years of foreign language.

How it works is that IF you take a language (the only options are Spanish or French) for BOTH (it has to be both) your 7th and 8th grade years, then you get one year of HS Foreign Language credit--which meant you only needed 1 more year of a language. We also have credit by exams, so if lets say you wanted to test out of Spanish, you took the credit by exam and if you got a 4 or 5 then you'd get the credit w/o having to take the class.

W/ the credit by exam, you could test out of both years of a foreign language, as long as you passed each correlating exam. My best friend did that---she tested out of our 1st year of Spanish.

At UTEP (i'm not sure how it works elsewhere in TX) you are REQUIRED to take a pre-exam before you can take a Spanish or French class. So essentially, it didn't matter how many years of a language you took. If you scored poorly on the test you were required to take the lowest language class, and visa versa if you scored highly on the test.

For the people that did it at my high school, it was solely for the scholarship you'd receive for getting it. True $1000 is not a lot, but when you can use it on whatever (it wasn't necessarily earmarked for only tuition), its a desirable option.

Maybe the whole senior class should pull a "Rudey" -- come into the principal's office one-by-one, lay their caps and gowns on his desk and announce they won't be at graduation unless she's the valedictorian.

alum: I honestly think he will feel that real life is excruciatingly boring and slow if he pursues a career in patent law. Great story though, I appreciate you sharing it.

PM_Mama: With Michigan's new graduation requirements, it would not be possible for someone to graduate in 3 years. Requirements and opportunities clearly vary by state.

My daughter's class has to have:
4 credits Math including at least Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry and a math class your senior year
4 credits Language Arts, specified : 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade
3 credits Science: Biology, Chemistry or Physics and one additional class
3 credits Social Studies: US History and Geography, World History and Geography, .5 Civics, .5 Economics
1 credit: Phys Ed & Health
1 credit: Visual and Performing Arts
2 credits: Other language

In the past, you could take 6 credits per year, so that would leave 6 credits of elective work or (obviously for college bound kids) another credit of science and social studies and 4 electives. They are moving to trimesters to allow more elective space so they can get up to 7.5 credits per year in many districts. If a child is in band, they must take it all 3 trimesters so they will have 1.5 credits in band per year.

My daughter's high school schedule will look like this each year:
1.5 credits band
1 credit language
1 credit math
1 credit science
1 credit social studies
1 credit language
1 credit elective (which will be Phys Ed/Health in 9th grade)
If it weren't for the trimester thing, college bound kids had no opportunity to take any electives.

However, the way the requirements are worded, you must take 4 years of math and English and there is no budging on that. They also don't allow you to do summer school unless you've failed a class and night classes aren't available either. Therefore, in our area, graduating in 3 years is, in fact, impossible. In fact, since my daughter had Algebra I in 8th grade, she will not get high school credit for it as they did in the past because the requirements clearly say she has to take 4 years IN high school. I am thankful for the trimesters because it will allow her to take some of the electives that she is interested in like Journalism, which is her intended career right now.

Our schools also do not adjust GPA for AP or Honors classes starting with the class of 2011 (my daughter is class of 2012).

That's what I was thinking. I loved high school. I can't imagine skipping out on my senior year. It was the most fun of all 4.

Dee.... my how things have changed in 10 years. I took SO many electives, some even twice (besides Yearbook). Maybe that's why high school was so fun for me.

^^^ I'm with you. I loved EVERY second of high school. I was able to do soooooo many things I wouldn't have had the chance to do otherwise....studying abroad, hosting a Russian, quiz bowl, FBLA....that's in addition to the "big" things like Senior Class President and Student Government.

I even joined FHA for a semester!

My senior year I took three office aid/administrative asst. I also learned how to cook a few thing too.

I graduated from high school 11 years ago and I don't even remember who our valedictorian was.

Who I do remember are the classmates who've gone on to do great things after graduation. My class boasts a number of amazing women.

Valedictorian or not, I'm sure this girl has a bright future ahead of her.

I had to "take" the "Office Ass't" class as well -- they gave that to kids with either incomplete schedules or when your required courses were full. Example: You're supposed to take World History as a Sophomore, but because there were only two sections offered and they were both full, my counselor knew I'd get priority if I waited until my senior year to take it. Plus she knew I'd find it to feel more like an easy elective than a required class.

Holy CRAP, it WAS 11 years ago now!!!

My valedictorian was a chick who could have gone to an Ivy league but went to probably the worst college in Pennsylvania on a free ride. She got raped her freshman year and lost her mind. Now, whenever anyone from high school sees her and says hello, she'll scream I DON'T KNOW YOU! And will walk quickly away.

Incidentally, her older brother was valedictorian two years before us, went to Georgetown for two years, then disappeared without a trace.

Oh, mine weren't for credit, if you were an athlete, due to your athletic p.e. being the last hour of the day, you were forced to stay. There was nothing left worth taking, except being stuck in classes with bitchy freshman girls all day, so I took those. The only time I ever actually did anything was on discipline day, we would harass the kids in trouble.

Nate and Sensuret, you guys are lucky you were allowed to take that type of class. At my HS they were called "outs" because you were out of a class. They were normally given during senior year, because that is when you have less classes that you are required to take. My bitch of a counselor decided that I couldn't have any outs. Why I don't understand, we had 7 class periods and I only had 4 classes. My friends all got outs b/c they had different counselors but us that were lucky enough to have our last names @ the beginning of the alphabet got stuck with Bitchy McBitcherson.

Lucky I was able to get 2 teachers to make up some bullshit class that isn't TECHNICALLY an "out" but it would work that way. And then I took home ec (which was taught by the football coach).

Well, back in MY day, high school was 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. We really only had to take 6, 5 and then 4 hours to have enough credits to graduate so a lot of people did that. I did take 5 hours my senior year because I wanted to take another year of Spanish. We could take up to 6, but how many kids, if given a choice of going home at 1 pm or 3 pm would choose to go home at 3 pm? I was an oddball for having 5 hours my senior year.

I didn't particularly like high school... although I was very active. Candy Striping, Spanish Club, Honor Society and working about 20 hours a week. (I was also a Girl Scout but didn't admit that to many people!)

Also, once we turned 18, during our senior year, we could call ourselves in sick. That was an amazing thing at the time! Smoking was also allowed once you turned 18, in the designated smoking courtyards. Yes, times have changed a lot.

that sucks.... i've been hearing about that on the local news.

supposedly when the girl was in junior high (or middle school?) the counselor told her graduating early wouldn't hurt her chances of being valedictorian so she went ahead and started plans to graduate early.

ETA: WHOA! She even had a perfect ACT score !

I am sure that if she graduated in 3 years with that high of a GPA, there are MORE than enough free rides out there. Not just in academics, she is also a minority. She is essential a college's T-Bone steak... and should have no problem getting the money to go to college.

My hometown has junior high schools... Elementary is K-4, Middle school is 5-6, junior high is 7-8 and high school is 9-12.

That was "new" when I was a sophomore... before then, Elementary was K-5, Middle school was 6-7, jr. high was 8-9 and HS was 10-12.

And from what I understand it wasn't a statewide "law" that created the situation... it was a district policy that was in place for that school district to define who the valedictorian would be.

Wow, that's a new one to me. So everyone attends a minimum of four schools, then? Middle school AND junior high?

10 years ago, my HS class didn't have valedictorians...just summa cum laude for the top 1%, magna for the top 3%, and cum laude for the top 10%. It's funny that what seemed so important 10 years ago doesn't matter now.

RE: college graduation rates, the person who said that 4 years is still the standard for private schools is absolutely right. Where in a public school there's a good possibility of having classes fill up, that just isn't happening in most private colleges. If a class I needed to graduate got cancelled, then I could always liase with the professor to do an independent study on the same topic.

I went to an IB school, and every diploma holder gets a year of advanced standing at most schools. My classmates who went to Florida schools all tried to get out in 3 years, which I do not understand whatsoever. I was offered a year as well, but if I had done that, there was so much that I couldn't do--study abroad, taking classes at RISD, being PanHell president, etc etc etc. Who wants to do college in 3 years? Also, most of those kids had full-tuition scholarships, so it wasn't as if they were saving their parents any money, either...weird kids.

I LOVE this set up. As a sub. I frequent middle schools (I love sixth grade) and there is a big difference b/t the kids in 6 & 7/8. Keeping 6 and 8th away from each other sounds good to me. But that's just me!

Anyways:
I feel bad for this young lady, she worked hard and did far more than a lot of people could hope for. 3 years or 4 years, whatever. She is in the senior class and she has the highest GPA. I would have thought that would be the basic requirements. Why would they have this rule that essentially can discourage children from excelling to their highest potential? (Although I can't imagine getting out of high school early. I don't even think it was an option at my school...)

That really sucks for her. She definitely deserves the valedictorian title.

So what do you guys think about this? At my high school, once a student turned 18, they had to get their parent's permission to become 'independent' to sign themselves out of school, authorize their tylenol, etc. I found that RIDICULOUS. I couldn't understand why, once a student was 18, they had to get their parent's permission to basically be a legal adult! Isn't that backwards??

bahahaha. interestingly OUR valedictorian only applied to Columbia, swearing it was the only school good enough. she ended up getting waitlisted and settled on St. Johns, which is an OK school, but obviously no Columbia. Imagine her face when the same scholarship offered to her by STJ was also offered to this random girl our year who had two children and missed a good portion of her junior and senior years because of maternity leave.

The last i heard from the girl, she founded a local which got absorbed by Theta Phi Alpha and was engaged. I'd pay top dollar to see her at the reunion. And the guy who (IMO) shouldve been valedictorian? Full-ride to MIT and now works for some engineering firm.

Our school pulled similar stunts junior/senior year-the program office would make your last period (or worse, 9th period!) class a required class, like History or English. Those were the only Regents you could theoretically only take as a senior, as there was some flexibility in Math/Science. The worst was having a 0 period lab (7:15-8am), which was absolutely a requirement for graduation.

So you could, as a senior, have a 1-6 schedule and then have some BS 8th or 9th period history class. it SO cramped everyone's (cutting) style. luckily for me, borderline-couldve-graduated-in-3-years, i had 1-5 and occasionally stuck around for Yearbook (which was on my schedule but the teacher didnt give two craps) and Class President stuff.

Our middle school keeps each grade very separate. They each have their own hallway where their lockers and classrooms are. They have separate lunches and sit in different places on the bus. They have three separate entrances and exits. The only time they mingle is in when they are walking to the bus and then, it seems, they are so concerned with just getting out of the school and to the dang bus that they don't interact..lol

ETA: My high school also did not have a valedictorian. There were 713 students and of the top 10 students, 4 were tied for the top rank spot, 4 for the second spot and 2 for the third spot and they were all separated by .001 or something ridiculous like that. We had summa cum laude for 3.9 and up, magna cum laude for 3.7 and up and cum laude for 3.5 and up. My kids' high school had 3 valedictorians this year with identical GPAs.

^^^ours dooes too. Seperate lunch, school sections, etc. But the older kids are horribly oversexed and obssessed with dating and being "independent" (in the wrong way). I thought it was bad when I went there in '97. But it's gotten worse. And this is not even the "bad school". You have to go East for those...

High School,
WOW! For me that was 19 years ago. I do however remember our valedictorian b/c there was controversy there as well.

I am from the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix). I love on St. Thomas. There were no high schools in St. John so the kids there all took the ferry to st. thomas for High school. Most kids came ot my school as it were within walking distance of the dock.

Anyway, the chick you was legally valedictorian (Wendy) came from St. John. The chick (Thelca) who was bitching about it was the kind of kid that had to be the best at everything and she was the number one student since the 7th grade (we went to the same school all the way through from the 7th -12th).

So when she came in 2nd to Wendy, ahh man the drama that ensued. Her mother was all up in the office saying our Wnedy shouldn't be eligible since she was only there for 3 yrs, yadda yadda yadda.

In the end (if I remeber correctly), Wendy (sweetheart) didn't give a rats ass and told her she could have the title. Not sure what happened to Wendy but Thelca is now a high school teacher at home. My youngest brother and sister had to take her English class. To hear them tell she was ANAL. i wasn't surprise to hear that!

In response to some of the posts - each school district in TX has different methods of calculating GPA, mine has a 6 point scale, based on an 8 period schedule. If you take 4 or more honors/pre-AP/AP classes, you recieve an extra point, meaning, that if you have straight A's in all the classes (including the heavy weighted ones) you can graduate with a 6.5. Some calculate class rank based on a 10 point scale (a 90 is the same as a 99), some rank based where THE highest average is #1. Our district doesn't do that because they believe it leads to grade grubbing and overly intense pressure on both the students and teachers. Problem with this is it leads to multiple valedictorians - Case in point:

My son was a valedictorian (6.5 GPA)- but, he was one of 26. All students who have perfect grades get the designation of #1. NOONE got a full ride from the state of Texas. Maybe at some schools, where they designate 1, and only 1 valedictorian, they can apply for the scholarship, but our district doesn't allow it.

The University of Texas is extremely stingy with merit scholarships. My son didn't get a penny, and he was #1 with a high SAT/ACT. My other son was a National Merit Finalist, and all UT offered was $4500 the first year, with $3500 each year after that (doesn't even cover 1/2 the tuition, much less room/board/books/expenses, etc.). He is attending University of Florida, where they pay his entire tuition and all of his expenses, including the new laptop he just got. GO GATORS!

Texas has nothing like the "Hope Scholarship" like Florida or Virginia, all we have is the top 10% law and rising tuition rates!!!

Anyway, just telling y'all this because the girl will have a much better chance of getting money if she attends either oos or a small school. TCU has deep pockets I've heard.

Pretty much:(

It used to not be as bad, meaning that there was space for kids from competitive hs's with good scores, ec's, etc. But this past year, was unbelievable!!! Complete bloodletting at our school!!! Where as last year, pretty much if you were in the top 25%, you had a great shot of getting in, this year, I know kids who were top 14% (2 B's at our school) and didn't get in!

Unfortunately, they won't be doing anything legislative-wise until after 2009 when they meet again. The proposed changes to the law were brought to the floor in the 2007 session, but were struck down.

SOOOO, what that meant for me and mine is that we sweat bullets last week while my youngest (rising junior) took finals. He has 1 B from freshman Bio, cannot get another, and just squeaked by with a 91 in pre-AP Calculus.

Back in my day, if you could sign your name on the application, you could get in UT!! ;)

I didn't *love* high school, but I had a great time and was involved in a ton of extracurriculars and clubs all while holding a part-time job as a waitress.

Our valedictorian was my BFF at the time. No one in our class had a perfect 4.0. She had a 3.8, the next gal (who took chump FFA classes and study halls her senior year and had a senior photo that looked like one of those old-timey photos you take at state fairs or amusement parks of her in a cowboy hat and duster holding a shotgun while sitting on a barrel) had a 3.798. I (who took a full course load including 3 AP classes and no study halls senior year while doing aforementioned extracurriculars and working and should have been 2nd) had a 3.976. No, I'm not bitter or anything.

ETA: our GPA calculations were ancient. IIRC, they weren't weighted and were straight points - A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1. And pluses/minuses weren't figured in. An A- was basically equivalent to an A, B+ the same as a B, etc... We three top students had all had one B+ at some point in our high school careers. I got mine right away first semester Freshman year, so I had to try and build my GPA back up. #2 got hers second semester freshman year and #1 got hers first semester sophomore year.

I never realized that until I read this thread, I thought that GPA calculations were pretty much the same throughout TX.

When I graduated from HS GPA was calculated this way: It was on a 4.0 scale. If you took a Pre-AP class, 8 points were added to your final grade, and if you took an AP class 10 points were added. So if you got a 97 in an AP calculus class, it would turn into a 107. I was #6 in my class and I had around a 3.97 GPA.

I graduated from high school only a semester early, and the principal told me I wasn't allowed to apply for any of the local scholarships so when I came back for graduation, I got to see some dumb-as-dirt kids get full-rides from several scholarships when the only one I got was from my college itself, which they didn't bother announcing. Schools 'round here don't like if you graduate early; they lose money from it.

I didn't read all 5 pages of this thread, but I read the OP and I'm still trying to wrap my head around a GPA over 5point, that just didn't exist (in my experience) back in the day.

That's because we = old. :p

Virginia doesn't have a Hope Scholarship. There are enough ISers fighting for a spot at our flagships without needing a financial enticement. The Jefferson Schol is for OOSers.

LOL. Exactamundo. (see? old :D)

Washington doesn't, either. Does UT make applicants do an admissions essay? The University of Washington implemented that several years ago because the formula they used to use (like many state institutions do) just wasn't effective anymore with so many highly qualified applicants. Can you imagine having to read tens of thousands of essays?

UT as in Texas?

Yeah, I had to at least.

Michigan has the Promise Scholarship.. a whopping $4000 for your entire college career if you make a certain score on the standardized test everybody takes Junior year.

The top 10% thing seems odd. Isn't it conceivable that the top 10% in one school district/one school is still lower than the top 30% in another? So you could be really screwed if you're in a better district?

I read an article a couple of years ago that pretty much highlighted that problem. Some parents even went so far as to enroll their kids in lower performing schools or districts to ensure their child would be in the top 10%.

You know, I'm not so sure how much we should rely on our states to provide scholarships, especially in the cases of top state schools (UT, UVa, or the Cal system). In-state residents basically get a discount on these relatively inexpensive schools anyway, while most out-of-state residents make up for the fact that they're not paying taxes in the state with out-of-state fees. Schools like the one I mentioned above are a great bargain in the first place.

If I had chosen to go to UF (fat chance, I basically applied because our college consultant required us to apply to a state school), my education would have been free, but it was so cheap anyway that it didn't feel like a major honor. I actually got even more money from William and Mary.

See, now our main state schools are VERY expensive. At one time, U of Michigan was the most expensive public university in the nation. They are not affordable AT ALL. All the schools are insanely expensive now. I have a friend whose son is at Western Michigan and he's paying $16,000 a year for a (hate to use the word) lower tier (read: Less selective) school. That's a 400% increase over when I went to school and tuition, room and board were less than $4000 a year.