Quote:
Originally Posted by AOII Angel
I was salutatorian. How will I ever recover?
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Remember when only male students were named high school valedictorian? In the 1960's my aunt raised two (male) valedictorians and two (female) salutatorians; they all attended/graduated same undergrad college with the men eventually working as lawyers and the women, teachers.
Our high school graduation program listed top 25 members of graduating class with asterisk(s) next to their names. It was common knowledge who was actually ranked number one (of 1075 class members) because the school had our rank list available after each quarter ended, and you were allowed to inquire of anyone's rank.
We had sets of numeric/weighed grade rankings, with an "A" in Advanced Placement courses earning 5 points but an "A" in Regular courses earning 4 points. The tougher a course, the higher the numeric weight of the grade earned toward GPA. Our smarties had GPAs above 4.0 due to this system.
The school occasionally pictured top 10/top 25 students in yearbooks and school/local newspapers.
As to becoming a student speaker at graduation, we had to submit speeches in advance to a coalition of teachers/admins for reading/approval. Our valedictorian did not speak (I believe she had more important, scholastic things to accomplish), but two of three chosen speakers were among top 25 students.