Tuesday, April 24, 2007
What if
In my first year of high school, I went to the one that was closest to my house. It didn’t have the best reputation, but it was walking distance. For some reason, even though I was in a “gifted children” program in junior high, I was placed into regular classes. What a breeze. Everything was so easy, and I was surrounded by people who either weren’t all that bright or couldn’t care less. I remember the biology teacher being completely bored with the usual mediocre students, but behind that bored exterior he was pleased to have at least one star student. It kind of shone in his eyes now and then when he would hand back test results. It felt good to know that I was the source of that bit of pride, that I outshined everyone else.
This was proven later that year when they handed out yearly transcripts of our progress, which included a ranking of all students. I was number one in my class. When students found out, they were impressed and looked upon me with new respect. It felt really good. I was just starting to get over my low self-esteem issues and this was just the thing I needed.
That summer I started thinking about college and what they were looking for in prospective students. I had heard that you had better chances of being admitted if you were from a better school, and in honors classes. So with this in mind, I transferred to another high school that had a good reputation for its honors program, and made sure I got into all honors classes. It was no longer a breeze. I was surrounded by bright students who were both smart and outgoing. I still did well, but I was no longer the top student.
I guess this is good for preparing you for college coursework, but in all honesty, I don’t think I would have fared that badly without this “preparation”. What I’m bitter about is how the school rated you. For taking honors classes, you get a “weighted” GPA, because your classes are harder. This means makes it possible to get higher than 4.0. This would be great IF they would take that into account when determining valadictorians. In the end, I found out they use the unweighted score. What the hell? Had I stayed in the regular non-honors classes, I could have breezed through with continuous straight A’s and been number one in my class the whole way through. I was quite peeved to find out that the valadictorian of our class was a girl who took mostly non-honors classes.
I felt totally gyped. We both applied to some of the same universities, and she got accepted to most, and I didn’t. I think having the title of “valadictorian” in your application makes you a prize and much more likely to be accepted than merely having a weighted GPA. I often wonder if I had stayed in that first high school and continued on as I did, would I have eventually become valadictorian with more choices in where I wanted to go? I know it doesn’t matter now, but I just hate thinking about how misinformed I might have been in those days.
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Categories: • I remember when... • Thinking aloud