The Daily Populous Tuesday May 19th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by abc7.com and submitted by IAmYourManagerKaren

New York high school's graduating class breaks school record with 21 valedictorians

JERICHO, Long Island -- Whoever said perfection is overrated, has never met the 21 valedictorians from this year's graduating class at Jericho High School in New York.

Every single one finished their high school career with straight A+'s in every class, all four years, but not one would say it was easy.

"It was hard. There were many nights where I wondered why I was putting myself through this," said Jericho High School Valedictorian Riya Shah.

Shah is now accepted to Princeton, one of many prestigious institutions that value the academic achievement in this elite group. They are way more than their grades though.

"We have National Merit Scholars; we have musicians at the highest level," said Jericho High School Principal Brian Cummings.

The school also has future problem solvers. Valedictorian Franklin Lee is headed to Stanford to sort out healthcare issues and transportation problems with A.I.

"The plane schedules could be a little chaotic, and like maybe I could fix that," Lee said.

Two in the group are headed to Georgetown.

"I wanna be a lawyer," Amneet Kaur said.

"I'm a global health major in their school of health," Harnoor Joneja said.

All of them have made sacrifices at some point in the busy social lives and activity schedules that most high schoolers have.

Twenty-one is a lot of valedictorians, but it has to do with the system in which they calculate the scores. The system uses the unweighted letter grades of students, meaning technically, they could have all A+'s and not taken any honors classes.

However, for most of the valedictorians, they have taken honors and AP courses.

They do have tips for those in high school and are still in the thick of it.

"You just really need to build yourself a strong support system," Kaur said.

"By getting my SAT done within sophomore year, I didn't have the same level of stress," said valedictorian Kevin Liu.

The only issue now is recognition at graduation... you can't have 21 speeches.

rraattbbooyy on May 18th, 2026 at 06:14 UTC »

When I graduated high school, there was one valedictorian and one salutatorian and that was it.

Having more than one dilutes the significance. Having 21 makes it a participation trophy.

robinfeud on May 18th, 2026 at 04:50 UTC »

They should all give their speeches at the exact same time.

pilgrimboy on May 18th, 2026 at 02:16 UTC »

If everyone is a valedictorian, nobody is a valedictorian.