There was a time when a high school's valedictorian was simply the student with the highest grade-point average at the end of the senior year. Now, it is commonplace for schools to have more than one student as a valedictorian for a graduating class.

How many valedictorians can there be?

Traditionally, a valedictorian is the person in the class with the highest grades overall. If there is a tie, there may be more than one valedictorian. Some schools also have salutatorians, the student who has the second highest scores in the class.

Can there be two valedictorians?

Academic excellence can be achieved by more than one student in a class, and the numbers show that today's multiple valedictorians are achieving more than the single valedictorians of yesterday. It's true that, at first glance, lowering the bar for valedictorian seems to water down the distinction.