Boston Public School Valedictorians 2016 (Andover, Lexington: 2013, public schools, college)

[edwardsyzzurphands]

I always enjoy posting these each year. Big thumbs up to all these great kids and good luck to their bright futures.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...fQO/story.html

[Urban Peasant]

Interesting that there are two co-valedictorians from BLS this year and both are going to Harvard. That doesn't happen too often.

[Seattle4321]

There seems to be some gender inequality in valedictorians.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by Seattle4321

There seems to be some gender inequality in valedictorians.

How so? Do you mean way more girls than boys? I don't find that surprising these days. Believe what you will but there are actually recent psychological studies that came out showing that more boys are under-performing these days because there aren't enough male teachers, especially in the earlier grades, to guide them. A female teacher might not have the same understanding of what a boy goes through in childhood and adolescence because well, um she is not a male and does not think like a male. Do you ever wonder why more boys get thrown in detention hall? It could be because boys really are naughtier than girls or it could be that societal rules in schools deem the bad behavior of boys to be more disruptive than any bad behavior of girls.

Looking deeper into the problem, there are other cracks that begin to surface including a tendancy for boys to desire to be leaders than followers - a particularly dangerous thought for boys who didn't have a good male role model in their lives, and a growing lack of focus on the success of boys in school. You have all these programs, policies, and initiatives guiding girls to be successful in school, to pursue business, science, engineering, technology, and so forth but for boys, there seems to be a feeling that they're well prepared to do any and all of that already which is not true.

I am no psychologist but I was a substitute teacher for four years in the Boston Public Schools and have witnessed it all. At one particular school, by the time of senior year, AP and Honors classes were filled with some 20 something girls and only 3-4 boys. I once told an academically troubled student he needed a quiet place to study and suggested the local library. The student's reply was something like "I don't like the library. It's boring 'cause they're no hot chicks there." At another moment I asked another boy why a group of girls in the class were all concentrating on their schoolwork and he wasn't. The boy points to the girls and retorts "They're all nerds!" I'm sorry but when I was growing up, no boy ever called a girl a nerd. It didn't sound right and it didn't make sense coming out of a boy's mouth. Does this address your statement?

[miu]

Originally Posted by Seattle4321

There seems to be some gender inequality in valedictorians.

Overheard some (black) women school teachers from Chattanooga, TN discussing the difficulty in teaching girl students due to the "Beyonce effect"... so glad that it's less of an issue in MA.

[such sweet thunder]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

Interesting that there are two co-valedictorians from BLS this year and both are going to Harvard. That doesn't happen too often.

Is there some unwritten rule that Harvard always accepts the valedictorian from BLS? I feel like I've heard that's a thing. It seems like it would be bad form for Harvard to not accept the valedictorian from what has through history been a close relative . . . kinda' like Boston College not accepting the valedictorian from Boston College HS.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by such sweet thunder

Is there some unwritten rule that Harvard always accepts the valedictorian from BLS? I feel like I've heard that's a thing. It seems like it would be bad form for Harvard to not accept the valedictorian from what has through history been a close relative . . . kinda' like Boston College not accepting the valedictorian from Boston College HS.

Boston Latin had 15 kids go to Harvard in 2013. It is one of the 7 feeder schools for Harvard and those schools represent approximately 1/20 of the freshman:

Boston Latin
Phillips Andover
Stuyvesant High School
Noble and Greenough School
Phillips Exeter
Trinity School NYC
Lexington High School

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by such sweet thunder

Is there some unwritten rule that Harvard always accepts the valedictorian from BLS? I feel like I've heard that's a thing. It seems like it would be bad form for Harvard to not accept the valedictorian from what has through history been a close relative . . . kinda' like Boston College not accepting the valedictorian from Boston College HS.

Boston Latin was founded in 1635 to prepare young men to go into (what was then) Harvard College which was founded a year later. Of course there's a tradition behind it. Still, I am not sure if throughout its 381 year history did any BLS valedictorian not get accepted (not the same as getting accepted but choosing not to go to Harvard). That be interesting history to research.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by robr2

Boston Latin had 15 kids go to Harvard in 2013. It is one of the 7 feeder schools for Harvard and those schools represent approximately 1/20 of the freshman:

Boston Latin
Phillips Andover
Stuyvesant High School
Noble and Greenough School
Phillips Exeter
Trinity School NYC
Lexington High School

15 students making it into Harvard isn't even that much of a feat by BLS standards. My graduating year sent 16 to Harvard and we felt the previous graduating class, which sent twenty something students, overshadowed our year.

Funny that Stuyvesant is included in the list. I had a classmate at BLS who had relatives in New York who told him Stuyvesant was a major feeder school to Columbia back then. Then I suppose it could be a feeder school to both Columbia and Harvard, most of its student body certainly have the smarts to do it. I always consider Stuyvesant to be the Boston Latin School of NYC.

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

15 students making it into Harvard isn't even that much of a feat by BLS standards.

The class of 2016 sent 23 students to Harvard if my sources are correct.