While I respect your opinion and for some kids that may be true about completing high school properly, I don't believe it applies to all kids. Our daughter graduated 11th in her class taking all the AP courses offered while missing one week a school year to do a cruise. IMO she should have been ranked higher because some of the kids above her took easier classes, and no AP classes and the GPAs were super close. For some reason her school didn't weight the AP grades heavier, so it was a disadvant