I’m grinning. Same here; I thought I did great in my courses. Looking back I watched a lot of TV, hung out with friends, and did a lot of sports!
It really depends on how the valedictorian is calculated.
In my high school, they had at least three different ways of calculating it.
1. Your marke before the final plus some community work for the school and public speaking. A honour student who was acclaimed by the teachers and students was considered to be valedictorian.
2. Your marks before the finals, taking all courses into account. This want to a student who didn’t take any advanced placement courses.
3. Your marks after the finals, taking all the finals into account. This went to a classmate of mine, who had the highest GPA after all was said and done.
4. Marks after the final, top 5 exams only. I had 7 finals written, so my lower 2 didn’t count. The only difference between me and my classmate was the French mark. I didn’t do that well on that final, but my top 5 were better than her top 5.
English, English Lit, History, Chemistry, Math, Physics, French.