Joanne Jacobs posted on 44 valedictorians at one high school and 58 at another. They all had 4.0 averages.
I thought it was interesting. My high school graduating class (’79) had about 160 students. The 4.o’s were way down in the rankings. The first forty plus students had over a 4.0. I was on the principal’s list every quarter, similar to the dean’s list in college, and I wasn’t in those top 40.
But I didn’t think there were too many of them. I thought it was perfectly fair. All those kids were taking AP courses. (Of course, I transferred college credits back to my high school to graduate and I didn’t get AP credit for those, even though they WERE college credits.)