high school girl doesn't get to be valedictorian

[epchick]

Originally Posted by tld221

And is this common, valedictorians getting a full ride just because they were #1? Or is this Texas-specific?

I think it is more school-specific, not necessarily Texas-specific. But I do know that when I graduated HS, our Valedictorian received a full-ride scholarship, but she didn't take it. Many schools that accepted her gave her a scholarship for being valedictorian.

Originally Posted by alum

It is the parents' and child's responsibility to read the handbook that explains policy and procedures. It is not up to the counselor to handhold every family and explain every policy in the book. However, if the family HAD read the policies and asked for an explanation the coundelor would have had to elaborate or get the parents some POCs of higher-ups in the school system.

I'm not familiar with TX public unis so I don't know if they give merit-based schols to instaters. I have heard that only the top 10% of TX high schoolers are admitted to UT Austin. So if you are in the 11th percentile at Great High School and you have stellar SATs and ECs, you still may be denied admission to give a spot to the 5th percentile kids from Bad High School with lousy SATs and ECs. Perhaps Srmom can elaborate

Again, I graduated 5 years ago, so it might be different for HSers now, but the only merit-based scholarship I remember being talked about was the Longhorn Scholarship that was offered by UT. If i remember correctly, a few people applied for it, but no one received it from my HS (and we all had stellar grades)

Plus a lot of school "handbooks" don't really have anything written about graduating in 3 years. Our handbook mainly had dress code and code of conduct policies.

Our counselors encouraged people who had stellar grades to graduate in 3 years. I guess its mainly because we come from a lower income city, so if you graduate in 3 years you were guaranteed a $1000 scholarship.

Originally Posted by SoCalGirl

Why not lower the percentage? The UC system guarnatees admission to the top 4% of CA high school graduates.

From what I understood they were trying to get rid of the guaranteed admission all together.