I went to nerd school. We never did valedictorian. It’s really pointless, nobody really cares about what you did in high school. And I doubt there’s really much in the way of competition, 99% of students know they aren’t in the running and don’t care. And for the ones that are the AP classes are the real reward anyway.
“It’s really pointless, nobody really cares about what you did in high school”
I’ll bet a lot colleges will disagree with you on that ... except the “woke”ones might.