SIGNAL-JAMMING. Brainster is unimpressed with a New Yorker article seeing something positive in abolishing the office of valedictorian. He focuses on that part of the article in which aspiring valedictorians take advantage of the rules, something which the article suggests is contrary to the spirit of the award, but for which he correctly notes,You wanted to be valedictorian pretty much forever, but you never thought to find out what the rules were?The article offers readers some other useful information, however. Two academicians did some ethnography on valedictorians.

Dedicated to the well-rounded ideal—to be a valedictorian, after all, you must excel in classes that don’t interest you or are poorly taught—the valedictorians had “used their strong work ethic to pursue multiple academic and extracurricular interests. None was obsessed with a single talent area to which he or she subordinated school and social involvement.” This marks a difference, [coauthor Karen] Arnold said, from what we know about many eminent achievers, who tend to evince an early passion for a particular field. For these people, Arnold writes, a “powerful early interest evolves into lifelong, intensive, even obsessive involvement in the talent area.” She goes on, “Exceptional adult achievers often recall formal schooling as a disliked distraction.” Valedictorians, by contrast, conformed to the expectations of school and carefully chose careers that were likely to be socially and financially secure: “As a rule, valedictorians relegated their early interests to hobbies, second majors, or regretted dead ends. The serious athletes among the valedictorians never pursued sports occupations. Most of the high school musicians hung up their instruments during college.”

Not many model railroaders, or dabblers in number theory? And here's an interesting nugget for observers looking for those missing men in college.

In the nineteenth century, young women largely outperformed young men in American high schools. They generally won more prizes, graduated at higher rates, and displayed lovelier penmanship. At graduation, girls would read while sitting or standing on a low step, since it wasn’t considered proper for them to speak from a platform.

Plus ca change. Despite the somewhat downbeat findings of her research, Professor Arnold defends the office of valedictorian.

“Over the past ten years, a lot of school districts have been abolishing the valedictorian, and I’m against that,” Karen Arnold told me. “On the day we allow anybody who’s always wanted to be a quarterback to play on the high-school football team, then we can get rid of valedictorians. If we rank anything, we ought to rank what we say is most central to school, which is to say, academic learning.”

Quite. Current thinking in the common schools, however, is to do less ranking off the field. Kimberly at Number 2 Pencil links to Chicago Tribune coverage of that phenomenon. She focuses on the greater difficulty universities that admit large classes on the basis of scant information will face in the absence of class rankings. A close reading of the article suggests the absence of class rank will encourage more aggressive positional arms races.

"Everyone is familiar with a New Trier," [Ohio State admissions tsarina Mabel] Freeman said.

"You can't just make assumptions about all high schools."

Other admissions directors, however, said they often agree with a high school's decision to abandon rank.

Simply put, "there are some very competitive high schools where class rank hurts the students," said Molly Arnold, director of admissions at Illinois State University, one of the schools that participated in [Lincolnshire] Stevenson [High]'s pilot study [to provide percentile rather than class rank information.]

Arnold said 10 percent more Stevenson applicants were accepted this year when class rank wasn't included.

Removing class rank also can benefit students applying to Indiana University, said admissions director Mary Ellen Anderson, who said that generally only students in the top half of their classes are admitted.\

That can be difficult at competitive Highland Park and Deerfield High Schools, so officials voted in 2004 to eliminate rank beginning with next school year's senior class, said District 113 Supt. Ann Riebock.

That means Megan Dayno will be one of Deerfield High School's last two valedictorians when she graduates Thursday with a 3.99 unweighted GPA after getting an A-minus in AP economics. The school also has a valedictorian with the highest weighted GPA.

[The story continues with some anecdotes about valedictorian-gaming. Don't mess with economists.] Break this down ... the policies generally specify that a student graduating in the upper 50% (or some other cutoff) of any high school class gets in, but absent any information about class rank (which may be rendered meaningless by grade inflation in any event) admissions directors will reveal a preference for graduates from reputable high schools. Watch for house prices in such districts to rise further.