The race is on. AP classes. A averages. The goal: To get the highest GPA.
Many top students say they have sacrificed everything from extra-curricular activities to their health in order to achieve their goals.
“The only pressure is myself, what all I can do,” senior Greg Gaskey said. “If I make good grades, I make good grades, but if not, it’s my own fault.”
Some students feel the pressure to be number one much like a requirement to be perfect, and many have gone so far as to stress themselves beyond necessary because of it.
“It’s good to have a goal, but it’s bad for it to make you so nervous that you’re being eaten up by the fear that you might slip,” history teacher Joe Pearson said.
As a result of the way that classes are weighted now, many students are dropping 4.0 extracurriculars in order to bump up their average with extra 5.0 AP classes.
Junior Travis Ford gave up seventh period swimming freshman year in order to get ahead, but says that the decision hurt him because he lost all that practice time. Adding swimming back into his schedule lowers his GPA, making it unlikely that he will make valedictorian, but Ford says that he doesn’t expect to be first.
“My goal is to be able to go to State, and if I miss that first 40 minutes of practice time 7th period, then that’s 40 minutes I lose from the competition, and that’s just as important to me as school is,” Ford said. “Three weeks in, I realized it was just too much. I want to be able to swim good and think good.”
Some high schools have developed a limited, weighted grade system where high schools can recognize their highest-performing students, similar to the way colleges do, by placing them in categories. It groups top students into Summa Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude and takes away from naming just one person as valedictorian.
“To some degree it stems from the same idea of, ‘well, let’s just give every kid a trophy because they’re all winners’,” Pearson said, “but there is the advantage of reducing the pressure to be number one and students not just taking classes for the purpose of bumping up GPA.”
This system would reduce the number of students who take courses simply for the reason of improving their GPA.
Students in the race for the top each have their own reasons to compete. Many are trying to receive state scholarships, prove to themselves that they can achieve it or prevail just because their parents expect it.
Junior Lindsey Taing knows the pressure that parents and having a valedictorian in the family can place on one person. Her brother’s legacy challenges her to prove to herself that she can succeed too.
“My parents kind of expect me to be valedictorian, but I’m not really doing it for them,” Taing said. “I’m doing it for me, even though everybody thinks it’s for them. It’ll be worth it in the future.”
Being valedictorian can result in a multitude of scholarships and some colleges will offer up to a full ride. However, outside of college, many jobs require other achievements such as volunteer hours or multiple non-scholastic activities.
“In the workplace I look for an employee candidate who has earned more than just amazing grades,” President and CEO of Texoma Community Credit Union L. Wayne Mansur said. “An employee who has extracurricular successes in their resume such as sports, journalism, theater, band and many other areas, but earns only modest grades often is as good of a performing employee as the one who earned straight A’s, and diversification, experiencing failure, serving others and teamwork are best learned outside the classroom.”
Mansur is a former high school and college educator who shifted careers 30 years ago to become a business manager and now is the president of a $100 million credit union. He graduated in the top 20 of his class…a class of only 83 students, earned a few F’s, had more C’s on his transcript than A’s, and graduated with almost a 3.0 GPA from college.
“Some students graduate Magna Cum Laude, while I graduated ‘Oh My Golly’,” Mansur said.
Despite his academic record, Mansur was able to become successful in life. Now he searches for the same qualities in potential employees, qualities like determination and diligence.
“I want a student who works hard, and often that employee earned many B’s and C’s in school,” Mansur said. “They have experienced failure. An employee who learned in high school that hard work is required to succeed is often a more desirable employee than an employee with a high IQ.”
No matter what the results of the race are, the focus is on the students and their preparation for their future, helping them achieve their goals.
“I think it’s important to have a sense of humility no matter what your status is, the realization that if you’re valedictorian, if you are brilliant, then to a degree, it’s because of gifts you’ve been given,” Pearson said. “What determines your worth as a human being is not whether you were valedictorian, but how you used those gifts. Did you use them in a way that was destructive, life-affirming or in a way that helped other people and uplifted other people? Did you use your gifts selfishly or generously? I think that’s what really determines the worth of your life.”