Student gets restraining order not announce valedictorian

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sr
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Student gets restraining order not announce valedictorian

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https://twitter.com/KXAN_News/status/867219997420130305

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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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It's a reflection of our litigious society that it has come to this. I kind of side wIth the kid, but holy crap, this is because some bureaucrats couldn't admit an error back before it became a thing, so they moved the goal posts. No one comes out of this looking good. There will be TV cameras at the graduation, and not for a good thing.

Having said that I would tell the parents to chill. I was high school valedictorian of a suburban class of around 600 and in the final analysis, it really doesn't matter. Her college applications have long since been ruled upon--she already knows where she is going to college by now. I read once that Duke had 3000 valedictorians in their applicant pool of 20,000 a few years ago, and about half of them were not admitted outright. A stratospheric GPA helps but what admissions officers really are looking for at the elite schools is depth of accomplishment in an area, not just a grade grubber.

I just read an article a few days ago that said that high school valedictorians as a whole do not later become world beaters. Sure, we are generally successful because we are good at tasks, can manage demands on time, and are probably reliable to a fault. But, by very nature of the pursuit, valedictorians tend to be conformists, schedule keepers, perfectionists. Borderline OCD in some cases. That is not what makes a risk taker, a world beater, a break out entrepreneur. We are someone you probably want to be in the second tier of a company. We'll make the trains run on time and make the CEO look great. But by our very nature, we don't take wild-eyed risks and that is the sort of person who changes the world.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by gerryb323 »

Here's the real link: http://www.kcentv.com/mb/news/local/rog ... /441929372

So she doesn't have the highest GPA but she still thinks she should be valedictorian?
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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gerryb323 wrote: So she doesn't have the highest GPA but she still thinks she should be valedictorian?
Based on the metrics the high school uses, yes she should be. I'm not agreeing with sueing, I tend to agree with TUPF on pretty much everything above, but it does seem clear she is the "real" valedictorian.

And FWIW not all schools choose valedictorian by just grade metrics. At VMI, you had to be top 5% of your class in terms of GPA, and then it was decided by class vote. It usually didn't turn into a popularity contest though. It became about who was the best all around, extra curriculars, grades, athletics, being a good classmate, etc etc
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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PS: I like the VMI system btw, and not just because it leads to a well rounded person (a la TUPFs discussion). I also like it because it doesn't seem any more arbitrary than the math way of deciding it. Most schools have multiple people with 4.0's so it ends up going to weird tie breakers of how diff courses are weighted, etc. At some point that gets just as arbitrary as anything else, mathematical or not
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by gerryb323 »

WaveProf wrote:
gerryb323 wrote: So she doesn't have the highest GPA but she still thinks she should be valedictorian?
Based on the metrics the high school uses, yes she should be. I'm not agreeing with sueing, I tend to agree with TUPF on pretty much everything above, but it does seem clear she is the "real" valedictorian.

And FWIW not all schools choose valedictorian by just grade metrics. At VMI, you had to be top 5% of your class in terms of GPA, and then it was decided by class vote. It usually didn't turn into a popularity contest though. It became about who was the best all around, extra curriculars, grades, athletics, being a good classmate, etc etc
Well, based on the metrics they used up until this year anyway. School decided to use final grades this year!
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by WaveProf »

gerryb323 wrote:School decided to use final grades this year!
Yes, because they made a mistake!

If they wanted to change the metrics it should 1) be for good reason, not because they messed up 2) a decision made well in advance & 3) a decision announced well in advance, probably 2-3 years in advance. Transparency in such decision making is paramount for fairness. The same with tenure procedure for teachers etc Anytime people could argue/quibble over the metrics, then which metrics you choose isn't important, it doesnt even matter if its a strict or lax one. what matters is transparency, transparency, transparency
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by TUPF »

BTW, here's the article I referenced above regarding valedictorians being good performers but not world beaters. Admittedly, when rereading, I noticed the sample size was pretty small, but there's nothing I disagree with.

http://time.com/money/4779223/valedicto ... tter_money

I heard anecdotally that very few first in their class midshipmen or cadets at the service academies go on to become flag officers either.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by doncecco »

TUPF wrote:It's a reflection of our litigious society that it has come to this. I kind of side wIth the kid, but holy crap, this is because some bureaucrats couldn't admit an error back before it became a thing, so they moved the goal posts. No one comes out of this looking good. There will be TV cameras at the graduation, and not for a good thing.

Having said that I would tell the parents to chill. I was high school valedictorian of a suburban class of around 600 and in the final analysis, it really doesn't matter. Her college applications have long since been ruled upon--she already knows where she is going to college by now. I read once that Duke had 3000 valedictorians in their applicant pool of 20,000 a few years ago, and about half of them were not admitted outright. A stratospheric GPA helps but what admissions officers really are looking for at the elite schools is depth of accomplishment in an area, not just a grade grubber.

I just read an article a few days ago that said that high school valedictorians as a whole do not later become world beaters. Sure, we are generally successful because we are good at tasks, can manage demands on time, and are probably reliable to a fault. But, by very nature of the pursuit, valedictorians tend to be conformists, schedule keepers, perfectionists. Borderline OCD in some cases. That is not what makes a risk taker, a world beater, a break out entrepreneur. We are someone you probably want to be in the second tier of a company. We'll make the trains run on time and make the CEO look great. But by our very nature, we don't take wild-eyed risks and that is the sort of person who changes the world.

Borderline? I would not consider myself a perfectionist by any means, (get close enough about 80% of the time) but the other descriptors certainly fit.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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ALERT!!!
 
Wait a second; naming a valedictorian will likely cause significant amounts of anxiety, feelings of inferiority, and cause potential ostracism against those who are not in the running for this position. It seems to me that the only appropriate thing they can do is name the entire graduating class as the collective valedictorian!
 
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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AO---There was an American studies professor at nyu who famously didn't assign reading to his grad students because he felt assigning homework put those who chose to not to the homework at an unfair disadvantage. I'm not kidding. And some of my colleagues wonder why academics get a bad wrap. It ain't fair but there are some real idiots in my profession who don't help the cause.
Last edited by WaveProf on Thu May 25, 2017 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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Well, sure. No assignments no effort on my part to review and grade them. Tin Lizzies I hear ya calling. This teaching stuff is OK.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by GretnaGrn »

WaveProf wrote:AO---There was an American studies professor at nyu who famously didn't assign reading to his grad students because he felt assigning homework put those who chose to not to the homework at an unfair advantage. I'm not kidding. And some of my colleagues wonder why academics get a bad wrap. It ain't fair but there are some real idiots in my profession who don't help the cause.
I had a readings course my last semester of graduate school with one of the members of my thesis committee. Once he learned I was going to law school, he assigned me exclusively Marxist interpretations to read. I'm reasonably certain he made sure those were in the library for just that purpose....

(honestly, I found it (and him) to be pretty hilarious)
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

Post by windywave »

GretnaGrn wrote:
WaveProf wrote:AO---There was an American studies professor at nyu who famously didn't assign reading to his grad students because he felt assigning homework put those who chose to not to the homework at an unfair advantage. I'm not kidding. And some of my colleagues wonder why academics get a bad wrap. It ain't fair but there are some real idiots in my profession who don't help the cause.
I had a readings course my last semester of graduate school with one of the members of my thesis committee. Once he learned I was going to law school, he assigned me exclusively Marxist interpretations to read. I'm reasonably certain he made sure those were in the library for just that purpose....

(honestly, I found it (and him) to be pretty hilarious)
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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WaveProf wrote:AO---There was an American studies professor at nyu who famously didn't assign reading to his grad students because he felt assigning homework put those who chose to not to the homework at an unfair advantage. I'm not kidding. And some of my colleagues wonder why academics get a bad wrap. It ain't fair but there are some real idiots in my profession who don't help the cause.
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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And this doody is why my school didn't have a valedictorian
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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sr wrote:Well, sure. No assignments no effort on my part to review and grade them. Tin Lizzies I hear ya calling. This teaching stuff is OK.
In fairness, in this case, it wouldn't help him like that. Most grad schools---and definitely NYU in this period, as I was at NYU concurrent to this a$$hat---don't assign much (or any) written work. You read. A lot. And a lot. And then at the end of the semester you turn in a 10-20 page paper that is expected to be of a caliber worthy of publication. The idea being that as you are becoming a professional, why waste your time with busy work, you should be focusing on producing the type of work/documents you'll be producing in the profession. The a$$hat in question at NYU was still assigning a final paper, so he still had as much grading to do as anyone else. What he wasn't assigning was the loads of reading. In fact he didn't assign any reading. Cause you know, you don't need to be exposed to any ideas other than the professor you are taking :roll: :roll:
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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WaveProf wrote:
sr wrote:Well, sure. No assignments no effort on my part to review and grade them. Tin Lizzies I hear ya calling. This teaching stuff is OK.
In fairness, in this case, it wouldn't help him like that. Most grad schools---and definitely NYU in this period, as I was at NYU concurrent to this a$$hat---don't assign much (or any) written work. You read. A lot. And a lot. And then at the end of the semester you turn in a 10-20 page paper that is expected to be of a caliber worthy of publication. The idea being that as you are becoming a professional, why waste your time with busy work, you should be focusing on producing the type of work/documents you'll be producing in the profession. The a$$hat in question at NYU was still assigning a final paper, so he still had as much grading to do as anyone else. What he wasn't assigning was the loads of reading. In fact he didn't assign any reading. Cause you know, you don't need to be exposed to any ideas other than the professor you are taking :roll: :roll:
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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nm
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Re: Student gets restraining order not announce valedictoria

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WaveProf wrote:nm
:angel:
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