Anecdote: At my high school rankings (and thus valedictorian honors) were 100% gamed to the point that you wouldn’t even make it up to the top 10 if you didn’t

Anecdote: At my high school rankings (and thus valedictorian honors) were 100% gamed to the point that you wouldn’t even make it up to the top 10 if you didn’t plan for it since freshman year. And when I say plan for it, I don’t mean “go into high school wanting to do great.” I mean exploiting every single opportunity in the most unnatural and nonsensical way. So everyone is familiar with a 4.0 GPA system, or at least most people in the US (for this not, 4.0 is the highest). At my high school, and basically all other high schools that I knew of from people I interacted with, classes marked as “honors” or “AP” classes were scaled to a 5.0 to reflect that these classes were harder or more advanced (physics AP vs regular physics). The rankings were determined based on some students having classes that awarded a 5.0 while most people had at most a 4.0 from them. But wait, maybe that doesn't seem too unfair since it awards smarter and harder working people? - So we had a fluffy extracurricular optional class called "yearbook" which are the people who spend the year "designing" the yearbook. For whatever reason, this was graded on a 5.0 scale. - All students on sports teams were required to take a bullshit course that graded on a 5.0. We all suspected it was to give student athletes a better ranking if they weren't also honors students. - Anyone in the student government was also placed in a special class, also graded on a 5.0. - If you enrolled for a class at the local community college it would be added to your GPA, also based on a 5.0. You had to pay for these classes of course, so it's already pay to win to start. They also didn't bat an eye at say "Jorge Ramirez" taking Spanish 101 just for the extra 5.0 added to their average. Then, you add in all the cheating. Lol if you think it's not rampant and widespread. You take the "smartest kids" and put them in a class and what do you expect? Why read the books they assign in literature, when someone's brother just took the class with the same teacher, and can just give us (or a select group of us, meaning you need to be "in" with the crowd otherwise you're the only one not cheating and you're at a disadvantage) all the material from last year? Why bother studying for a physics test, when you can just "be sick" on the day of the test, ask a buddy about the test and then remember exactly what they told you to remember? There are so many more examples but the point is: GPA rankings and honors like valedictorian meant absolutely nothing. Granted, i was bitter at the time because I didn't game the system by signing up for fucking yearbook making every year since freshman year or had parents able to afford paying for 5.0 grades for me at the community college.