Heaps of honors

There were 42 valedictorians and 113 honor graduates among the 310 seniors graduating at the high school ceremony I attended! And apparently this is a trend among local high schools. Decades ago, there traditionally was only one valedictorian and a just a sprinkling of honor graduates. More awards might be good because Hawaii students are competing against mainland graduates and I would imagine mainland schools are also bestowing valedictorian and honor graduate status in record numbers.

However, college admissions departments will also eventually begin discounting valedictorian and honor graduate status because there will be so many. You can imagine that in the past a college might see only 100 valedictorians applying, now it could be thousands of valedictorians and honor graduates applying. Theoretically, the biggest loser is the No. 1 valedictorian because in the past he or she would have been the only one, now he is only one of 42.

Leighton Loo

Mililani