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Arlington’s Washington-Lee High School this year, there were 117 valedictorians out of a class of 457
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That's our school, and I know a couple of the 117 valedictorians. They are both smart kids. (I'd know more, but they are two years older than my kid. I expect I'll know a bunch the year she graduates.)
As long as they have this system, I'm hoping/expecting my kids will both be valedictorians, but the competition here is pretty surreal. Arlington, last I checked, was the most educated county in the country. Virtually every parent here was near the top of their class growing up in some podunk town, and every parent expects their kid to be at the top of the class here. It's very different from my experience growing up in Maine, where a sizable portion of my fellow students really celebrated graduating from Junior High School because they didn't plan to graduate from High School.
It's a ridiculous system though. What does it say about the kids who don't make valedictorian? I think it adds to the pressure.