I’ve seen a ton of articles this graduation season about schools choosing to do away with class rank. For example, from today: “Schools playing down valedictorian honors.” The whole thing’s become too competitive, school leaders and parents say. But for many high schoolers, being at the top—or at least near the top—is a strong motivation to get good grades and take accelerated courses (if their school gives them extra weight when calculating rank). It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
A version of this news article first appeared in the Motivation Matters blog.
