Valedictorians include twins, 2 of 3 triplets
There were late nights spent studying side-by-side and car rides to school when they rehearsed the material one last time before their exams.
And now four years of sweat and persistence have paid off for Kathryn and Patricia Abely and Alexis and Maddie Kidd: The two sets of sisters are among the 31 valedictorians — a school record — who will graduate Tuesday from Winter Park High School.
The Abelys are twins, while Alexis and Maddie Kidd are part of a set of triplets. Their brother, J.R., narrowly missed being a valedictorian, too.
“Our competitive personalities definitely helped us,” Maddie Kidd said. “The goal wasn’t to be a valedictorian.” Rather, she said, the sisters did their best in every course, and graduating at the top of their class was the result.
“We don’t do anything halfheartedly,” Alexis Kidd added.
The four Winter Park students say having friendly rivals and study partners under the same
roof helped motivate them. And they didn’t breeze their way to straight A’s by taking easy classes, either: All were in the rigorous International Baccalaureate program.
Graduations for local schools are in full swing. Ceremonies for Orange County public schools started on Tuesday and continue through May 30. In Seminole County, graduations start Saturday and wrap up on Friday.
Winter Park, which bestows valedictorian status on anyone with a 4.0 unweighted GPA, is one of four Orange public schools with more than one valedictorian. And it’s not the only Orange school where siblings are sharing the honor: Timber Creek High School’s 29 valedictorians also include twin sisters, Giana and Kayla Ortiz.
The days of double-digit valedictorians are numbered, though, because starting with next year’s freshman class, only the student with the highest weighted GPA at each school will receive the honor. When weighting GPAs, students can earn extra points for I.B., Advanced Placement and other tough courses.
Beginning with the graduating class of 2021, schools will recognize multiple valedictorians only if two or more students have identical weighted GPAs calculated to the third decimal place.
This year, each of the Winter Park valedictorians will have about 40 seconds to talk at their graduation, and each set of sisters took a different approach. Kathryn and Patricia Abely wrote theirs independently, only reading them to each other after they were finished. The Kidds will deliver theirs together, drawing on Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” for inspiration.
While the Winter Park graduates say they relish sharing the honor with their sisters, they concede naming one valedictorian per school is ideal. But they also said they worried high achievers intent on driving up their GPAs would shy away from taking electives under the new policy.
And they said their favorite memories from high school had little to do with earning straight A’s. The Abely sisters talked about learning about bonding with their teachers during a trip to England and Scotland.
Kathryn Abely remembered how her psychology teacher had showed up unexpectedly to cheer her on at her tennis match. Maddie Kidd appreciated a teacher’s subtle reference to a character from a novel during an end-of-year celebration for I.B. students. And Alexis Kidd told a story about her classmates frantically swapping shoes during their freshman year because they weren’t supposed to wear flip-flops or sandals on lab days.
Their advice to next year’s freshmen? Remember that you can’t learn everything in class. Enjoy the non-academic parts of school, like football games. And if you have to choose between a couple of more hours of study time or sleep, sometimes it’s OK to choose the latter.
Next year, the Kidds are going separate ways, as Maddie will head to the University of Florida while Alexis and J.R. attend Florida State.
The Abely sisters, however, both picked Davidson College in North Carolina — a choice they say they made independently. They’re don’t plan to share a room, but they won’t be surprised if they wind up in the same dorm or even down the hall from each other.
That’s because the school bases housing assignments on students’ interests.