There's no surefire formula to top the high school heap
Quality points. Immigrant parents. Study habits. Valedictorians and salutatorians reveal secrets of success.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published May 19, 2004
They are heralded as the best and the brightest, the shining stars among high school students.
They boast stellar grade point averages, an avalanche of extracurricular activities and ambitious plans. But who are these students, the ones who rise to the tops of their classes to claim the coveted titles of valedictorian and salutatorian?
A glance at this year's local public school vals and sals reveals a few trends. There are more girls than boys. They are more likely to be from other countries or to have parents who were foreign-born. A high percentage of them are of Asian descent.
In an effort to probe more deeply and to find out what makes these high achievers tick, Neighborhood Times spoke with four of them as graduation approached.
Kathakali Sircar never set out to be valedictorian of her class at Lakewood High School, but she brought a strong work ethic and a great respect for education with her when she came to the United States from India with her parents at age 13.
"Over there, education is a person's life," she said. "I guess it's because of the population. There's a lot more competition. If you mess up, you're done."
Sircar, who is 17, briefly attended a north Pinellas high school before she transferred to Lakewood. Her guidance counselor there did not encourage her to take high-level classes. No one ever explained to her that honors and advanced placement classes carry what are called quality points that help a student achieve a higher grade point. For example, an A in a regular class would rack up four points. An A in an honors or advanced placement class would net five points.
"I had no idea about this education system," Sircar said. "I took the majority of my honors classes during 11th and 12th grades. I took them because I thought they would look better on my transcript and because I think everybody should challenge themselves."
It wasn't until she learned she was ranked No. 1 in her junior class - and until she began to sense the envy of other students who wanted her spot - that she set her sights on becoming valedictorian.
"I thought, "Okay, this is very competitive,' " she said. "It definitely gave me a lot more drive."
In the end, she credits her academic success to the study habits she developed as a child.
"My friends used to make fun of me for studying for health class," she said. "It's pretty much based on common sense, but I still studied for it because I was in the habit of doing it. Even if it's easy, you're not in the mind set of, "Oh, I'm going to relax.' "
Like Sircar, Kasia Cudzilo never intended to be valedictorian. She rose to the top of her class in the medical magnet program at Palm Harbor University High almost in spite of herself.
"I feared it so much, getting up and giving a speech and being singled out," she said. "I never tried for it, but I didn't purposely sabotage it either. I was doing my best and it turned out I was No. 1."
Cudzilo, who is 18, goes against the stereotype applied to children of immigrants. Neither her mother, who went to a trade school for sewing, or her father, who had only a little college before fleeing Communist Poland 20 years ago, pressured her to excel in school. She thinks that was what actually helped her to succeed.
"Because I didn't have the pressure, I didn't cheat, I didn't copy, I didn't do things just for the grade," she said. "I did things because I wanted to do them."
Her story illustrates how one small element can make a big difference when it comes to who will end up in a school's top spot. Her grade point average and that of her best friend, Warren Wade, were separated by less than a hundredth of a point. Wade ended up being the class salutatorian.
"I think the only difference was that one year he took a gym class and I took a quality point class," Cudzilo said. "We had both made straight A's, but I took one more weighted class than he did."
Quality points were crucial this year for students in St. Petersburg High's International Baccalaureate program. The top two seniors, Matthew LeVine and Hayley Jade Fink, were neck in neck for the top spot until the end.
LeVine's one-thousandth of a point advantage - both he and Fink have 4.81 GPAs - was the result of quality point classes he took in middle school.
"I had geometry and algebra credits from middle school that counted toward my high school credits because they were high school curriculum," he said. "I also got quality points for IMAST (Integrated Mathematics and Science with Technology) science."
While LeVine was taking classes that eventually gave him quality points in high school, Fink was taking French. When the Pinellas school district retroactively assigned quality points for middle school classes and said they could count toward a student's high school GPA, it did not assign quality points to classes such as French and drama.
"I had no chance because when I went to middle school, I didn't go to MEGSSS (Mathematics Education for Gifted Secondary School Students)," Fink said. "I was automatically disqualified."
Fink suspects that many students take certain classes based on how much credit they can get for them. In a way, she said, the system is set up to dissuade high-achieving students from taking classes in which they have a special interest.
Despite her desire to succeed, she did not plan her schedule around being valedictorian.
"There was no point in my life where I sat down and said, "I want to be valedictorian,' " she explained. "The point for me was always to do my personal best and if I got to be valedictorian, that would be wonderful."
Once LeVine and Fink got into the IB program, nearly all of their classes carried quality points. The only two classes LeVine took that did not were driver's education and a course called "The Semantics of Logic."
Those classes were "a nice little rest period," he said.
"The senior year is so demanding. It's so easy to capitulate and give up," he said. "By the end of the year, you're basically crawling to the finish line."
In the long run, LeVine said, it's the IB experience that counts more than the right to call himself valedictorian.
"The No. 1 spot isn't that important to me," he said.
Keturah Pittman, a longtime guidance counsellor in the IB program at St. Petersburg High, said that many students come to her as ninth-graders declaring their goal to become valedictorian.
"Some of them are so focused on becoming valedictorian or salutatorian that they forget to be kids," she said. "They are so focused on being No. 1 that they eliminate so many of the other activities that students do that help them to enjoy high school."
Pittman said they would do better to concentrate on being more well rounded.
"Being No. 1 in the class is not going to tip the iceberg for them when they get to college," she said. "And in the long run, no one is going to say, "I'm going to hire you because you were valedictorian in high school.' "
Among the Best of the Best:
KATHAKALI SIRCAR, valedictorian at Lakewood High School
Plans: to attend the University of Florida to study premedicine
Senior year activities: National Honor Society, Ecology Club historian, Student Government representative, Drama Club
Parents: Mitali and Kalyan Sircar of St. Petersburg
KASIA CUDZILO, valedictorian for the medical magnet program at Palm Harbor University High School
Plans: to attend the University of Florida to major in microbiology
Senior year activities: Mu Alpha Theta
Parents: Lukasz and Barbara Cudzilo of Tarpon Springs
MATTHEW LEVINE, valedictorian for the International Baccalaureate program at St. Petersburg High School
Plans: to attend Emory University to major in music and then to attend Georgia Tech to major in science and engineering
Senior year activities: National Honor Society, Thespian Honor Society, Tri M music honor society, Key Club
Parents: Ellie and Dr. Mitchell LeVine of Seminole
HAYLEY JADE FINK, salutatorian for the International Baccalaureate program at St. Petersburg High School
Plans: to attend Harvard to major in political science
Senior year activities: National Honor Society treasurer, Mu Alpha Theta secretary, Academic Team co-captain, French Honor Society co-president, French Club co-president, St. Petersburg High Young Democrats co-founder and co-president, Key Club, Model UN, Rho Kappa historian, swim team, marching band
