Why Do Some High Schools Have Ten or More Valedictorians?

After hours of commemorating all of Los Alamitos High School’s exceptional students on May 22 during Senior Awards Night, students and families anticipated the final award of the evening – the naming of the class of 2025 valedictorian. 

However, at LAHS, the announcement didn’t end with one name. For this year’s senior class, 10 students were honored with the title. 

The 10 valedictorians for the class of 2025 are: Lucas Beltran, Jeffrey Chung, Alexandra Hatakeyama, Phoenix Huynh, Adam Kogen, Jacob Leung, Daniel Li, Vivian Moore, Emma Osborne, and Kaylah Rhee.

In previous years, the number of students chosen has ranged from 10-13 as the top 10 students, and all who are tied for 10th, are honored. 

This year's top scholars also recently participated in a campus tradition known as the “Valedictorians Signing Ceremony." Held inside the school's gym with family and friends watching, each valedictorian was able to share where they are headed after graduation and offer thanks to their supporters. All ten are attending top-tier colleges and universities including Stanford, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.

 “We are so proud of these extraordinary students—not only for their academic excellence, but for the integrity, curiosity, and leadership they’ve shown throughout their time at Los Al,” LAHS Principal Christiana Kraus said in a press release.

The topic of valedictorians was once a heated one at Los Alamitos High School. Following student and parental arguments of resentment after failing to win the title in the past, administrators decided to take a different approach to the coveted role: choosing multiple people for the honor. 

The title “valedictorian” has conventionally equated to the singular student ranked at the top of each senior class with the highest academic achievement or best grade-point average (GPA). Salutatorian was earned by the student with the second highest GPA. Fifteen years ago, LAHS modernized its tradition and chose 10 students to be “valedictorians.”

“There was a decision made at that time where (administrators) felt at our school, (choosing one student) just did not represent truly what a valedictorian was,” said Kraus. “(The students chosen) are all equitable and equal. It was a decision made well over a decade ago, and it's been one that's been very consistent on our campus.”

This year’s 10 valedictorians at LAHS were chosen from more than 700 students. The class of 2024 had 11 valedictorians, selected from 777 students. 

But how are the top students picked out of the sea of hundreds? Through the tireless work of their guidance counselors. 

LAHS head counselor, Gail Davenport has been a part of the counseling team for 13 years and commented on her experience choosing valedictorians each year. 

“The counselors meet as a team, and we do a hand calculation,” Davenport said. “It is all academic courses, college prep courses, specifically. We remove any PE courses or non-college prep courses and then we keep in only two semesters of fine art.” 

However, it’s not just the large class sizes leading to the selection of multiple valedictorians, it's the almost imperceptible differences between the GPAs of the top students. While it’s a common misconception among students at LAHS that valedictorians are chosen based on merit along with the grade-point averages of their academic classes, the decision is made solely on how the students’ GPAs add up. 

“I would agree our students and our community's expectation of what excellence is is at a pretty high level. Over 80% of our students are on one level of the honor roll." – Los Alamitos High School Principal Christiana Kraus

“I would agree our students and our community's expectation of what excellence is is at a pretty high level. Over 80% of our students are on one level of the honor roll,” said Kraus. “That’s not super typical, that only 20% of your students are not on one of the two levels of honor roll that we have as a school.”

“I love it because we get to celebrate a lot of people,” said Davenport. “The numbers, when you get down to the top, are really so tight that a lot of people, those 10 people, really deserve to be celebrated.”

After coming to LAHS four years ago, Kraus also originally had questions about the reasons for choosing around 10 valedictorians each year. 

“When I first got here, I was like, oh, we have 10 (valedictorians) and their rationale was literally, you'd be moving over the decimal point so far to try to figure out where it lands,” said Kraus of the effort to distinguish the rankings. “They really are an equitable group of students, and I think it is appropriate for our school.”

LAHS also isn’t alone in the decision to stray from the customary selection of one valedictorian.

The Capistrano Unified School District class of 2025 has more than 1,180 valedictorians.

For instance, the Capistrano Unified School District, Orange County’s largest public school district, has a policy that every graduating senior “with cumulative grade-point averages of 4.0 or higher" is deemed a valedictorian. The CUSD’s class of 2025 has more than 1,180 valedictorians, according to the district. San Juan Hills High School alone has 242 students earning the honor this year. 

Each of CUSD's six comprehensive high schools also selects a "Scholar of Scholars," which is the “the student with the highest overall weighted grade-point average based only upon certain coursework.” That scholar is given the opportunity to speak at graduation.

Millikan High School, in the Long Beach Unified School District, also has a more expansive approach. Instead of choosing one, or even a couple students for the position, they honor all students who earn all A's throughout their four years of high school. 

“These students are given the honor of wearing a gold robe at graduation and it is designated on their diploma as highest honors,” said Millikan High School counselor, Gayle Mashburn. “Last year we had 68 ‘valedictorians.’ We had 83 the year before that.  Our graduating class is generally 750-850 students.” 

The Garden Grove Unified School District has a more traditional approach. Each of its eight high schools usually names one valedictorian and one salutatorian. The class of 2025 honorees were announced last month. Los Amigos High School has two valedictorians in the class of 2025 – Alexander Lozano, who is headed to Stanford, and Cat Pham who plans to attend Columbia University.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District has one high school which names a single valedictorian for its graduating class and a class speaker. "The class speaker is chosen through a process in which speeches are submitted anonymously and reviewed before a final selection is made," Anakaren Cárdenas Ureño, the district's communications director, wrote in an email to Spotlight Schools. The LBHS class of 2025 has 193 graduating seniors including Valedictorian Julian Reichel.

Other school districts have done away with the titles altogether. The Tustin Unified School District no longer recognizes valedictorians, according to a 2015 story in the Orange County Register. In 2009, the Huntington Beach Union High School District voted to move away from selecting valedictorians to instead utilize the same honors as many universities – magna cum laude for students earning GPAs of 4.0 and higher and summa cum laude for students with at least a 4.4 GPA or above.

At Los Alamitos Unified's only high school, students have different viewpoints about the approach to honoring top scholars. Although many LAHS students feel that naming 10 valedictorians is appropriate, there is still some unease with the increased amount. 

Michael Wu, a junior at LAHS, has been taking Advanced Placement classes since his freshman year and works to be one of the top in his class. However, he often feels like there might be another solution to the valedictorian process. 

“Given the size of our school, I think 10 honors is definitely more representative of the amazing work and effort people put into their studies than just one,” said Michael in a text message. “However, I do think it makes the title of ‘valedictorian’ less meaningful. I think that, in order to address both of these issues, there should be one valedictorian (or a tie) and a pool of salutatorians (maintaining 10 honors would make a pool of 9).” 

Unlike Michael, Valedictorian Jeffrey Chung was indifferent towards the number of honored students. 

“I don’t really mind, they all deserve the title,” Jeffrey said. “Ten is a decent number for a class of almost 800 students.”

However, LAHS Valedictorian Phoenix Huynh raises another concern altogether. Still agreeing that 10 is a good number to choose, she also believes that the increased rigor over the years has facilitated a toxic environment that pushes too many students to vie for the role. She’s concerned students may work only for the title without the thirst for knowledge itself. 

“Encouraging this half-hearted studying (just for) titles encourages a ruthless cycle of studying for grades, not to learn,” Phoenix said. “I don’t believe rigor of education should be the motivation behind more valedictorians; rather, I strongly believe in class size being the most important factor.”

Though many students continue to have mixed opinions on the issue, the choice 15 years ago to change the make-up of the school and foster more student celebration proves to be the right one, according to Phoenix. 

“Having many valedictorians makes sense in a large school with a large class size. Acknowledging the people around us that work hard and value academics is important,” said Phoenix.

Editor's Note: Jeannette Andruss contributed reporting.

Correction: The last name of student Michael Wu was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of the story.

This article was written by Jaya Eapen, a former Spotlight Schools Editorial Intern, and student at Los Alamitos High School. Help support the Spotlight Schools internship program that inspires and trains young journalists by donating to Spotlight Schools here.