How were kids seated at Graduation? updated post #86

[usd2bmd]

Was it strictly alphabetically or the top 10 or 20 in the front row?

There has been serious drama with my daughters graduation. At practice when it was announced that they would be seated alphabetically I have heard from several kids that a couple of the kids flipped out. Primarily because they are in the top 20 and not being seated in the front row. These kids are always recognized at the ceremony but have not been seated in the front row for several years.

a few parents of these kids went to the school board and caused quite a stink and they have now changed the seating for the ceremony.

Now I am one of those parents who does NOT have a super smart all honors AP child. but she is graduating and quite honestly I am over the moon that she did it. I honestly don't know what my reaction would be if I were in their shoes. But I thought I would ask here and get a feel for how they do it around the country.

 

[smitch425]

Was it strictly alphabetically or the top 10 or 20 in the front row?

There has been serious drama with my daughters graduation. At practice when it was announced that they would be seated alphabetically I have heard from several kids that a couple of the kids flipped out. Primarily because they are in the top 20 and not being seated in the front row. These kids are always recognized at the ceremony but have not been seated in the front row for several years.

a few parents of these kids went to the school board and caused quite a stink and they have now changed the seating for the ceremony.

Now I am one of those parents who does NOT have a super smart all honors AP child. but she is graduating and quite honestly I am over the moon that she did it. I honestly don't know what my reaction would be if I were in their shoes. But I thought I would ask here and get a feel for how they do it around the country.

Not sure about our high school here in Ohio, but my high school in Indiana did it alphabetically. Seems like a dumb thing to throw a fit over.

 

[kaite]

We used to seat the top 25 on the stage. Now, the top 25 have the first row, and it is alphabetical from there on out.

 

[Rylee]

Here, the Top 10 sit in the front row. The rest are according to height.

 

[ashley0139]

We did it just alphabetically except, I think, for the valedictorian and salutatorian who gave speeches. We definitely did not have the top 20 in the front row.

 

[Caropooh]

At DD's graduation last year, all honors students sat in the first row and then the rest of the graduates sat in the rest of the rows. They walked in pre-arranged groups of 4 ad filed into the seats. Not alphabetical or anything.

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

It goes alphabetically here-I don't think it's common practice around our area to seat the top 10 in the front row,.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My DS graduated a few weeks ago. No students sat on the stage. It was faculty and school board only. The first two rows of students included kids who were going to go on stage, including speakers and award winners. A group of hearing-impaired graduates sat at the end of the 1st row and an interpreter sat facing them. My son, who has Asperger's, was placed in the second row with the graduates in his special ed class. Their teacher sat next to them at the end of the row. The rest of the grads were seated alphabetically. There were 20 valedictorians (4.0 or above). They were seated with the rest of the grads, but were called to stand up when their names were announced.

 

[meowser]

20 years ago... Valedictorian and salutatorian on the stage. The rest of the ~700 person class signed up for seating so that people could sit with friends. Once the seating was determined, there was no changing (due to needing to read all ~700 names correctly)!

 

[barkley]

there were almost 600 in my graduating class-it was strictly alphabetical (except the valedictorian who sat near the stage).

I had to just ask dd b/c I didn't know how it was done w/her (other than it was not alphabetical), she said they were allowed to self select the partner they walked to the stage with and then they just formed a line (again valedictorian was in front row). if they had done top 10 or 20 ranked in her class with special seating that would have been over 50% of the entire graduating class

 

[Maridw]

One of the high schools here did theirs by GPA. As they went up the steps to the stage, they handed the person at the mic a card with their name on it.

I originally did not know this was how they were lined up. It wasn't until a couple days after the ceremony that I found out. I went to this graduation because a young lady I am like a mother to was graduating.

When my DD graduated, the top 10 or 20 were in the first rows and the rest were just lined up any way. They did the same thing with the card with their name.

I was talking to a friend and when she graduated there were only two high school in town and so they had large class sizes. I said "I bet you lined up alphabetically" and she said yes. I said that was the way it was when I graduated.

I guess I am old school and think it should be alphabetically.

 

[Poohforyou]

Here the graduates walk in pairs with the valedictorian and salutorian leading the way and all others following alphabetically in pairs. They then sit alphabetically except the top 2. The top students wear the medals, ribbons and hoods given out at the academic awards ceremony a few nights before graduation.

 

[powellrj]

My DD just graduated a few weeks ago and they were alphabetical. My DD was valedictorian and was seated towards the back of the group because of our last name. It was a small class with only 64 graduating so they were all on the stage. They wore black robes and the kids in National Honor Society wore yellow stoles and the kids who received honors diplomas had yellow cords.

 

[maslex]

I never realized there were different ways to seat the graduates. At my graduation (back in '89) we were all seated alphabetically. And all of the graduations that I have been to in the past (different schools) have all been alphabetically.

My son's graduation, last week, was set up a bit different than usual but it was only because he went to a technical high school where there are 10-12 different shops. So the graduates were seated together by shops, then the principal would call, "Electrical" then alphabetically called each student within that shop. Then called "Carpentry", "Hairdressing", so on and so forth. Even the valedictorian and salutatorian sat with and were called within each of their shops.

 

[gjl]

R

 

[indimom]

Alphabetically other than the val/sal. They flanked the front row. I assume, to make it quicker to reach the stage for their speeches. This was a class size of about 200.

 

[lustergirl]

Not sure about our high school here in Ohio, but my high school in Indiana did it alphabetically. Seems like a dumb thing to throw a fit over.

Smitch: not that surprise over the uproar considering how entitled our society has become. Just parents teaching their children that they are more special than anyone else

 

[tvguy]

Never seen or heard of anything other than alphabetically seating. To be honest, my kids high school didn't even finalize grades until the day after graduation so there would be way to know exactly who the top 20 were until then. I do know that there were 20 kids who walked with their class who found out the next day they did NOT graduate.

 

[indimom]

Never seen or heard of anything other than alphabetically seating. To be honest, my kids high school didn't even finalize grades until the day after graduation so there would be way to know exactly who the top 20 were until then. I do know that there were 20 kids who walked with their class who found out the next day they did NOT graduate.

Now that's just sad.
Why not set the graduation ceremony a week later or something? Seems like it would avoid issues like that?

 

[taylor1293]

Two years ago, for my daughters graduation, there were two groups of graduates sitting in alphabetical order. The first group was the top 10% and they were dressed in white. The second group was the remainder of the class and they were dressed in blue.