Being a valedictorian no longer unique?

Katie is a junior at Riverdale Country School. She says her school doesn't even track GPA so she doesn't even know what hers is. Despite not being ranked, she still always strives to do her best, she says. No grades means no traditional valedictorians.

Across the country, many high schools have decided to validate all straight-A students by making them all valedictorians or having several of them.

So how important is class ranking to college admissions? It has changed over the years. In 2013, only 15 percent of 352 colleges surveyed and said class rank was important. In 1993, almost half said it was important.

Jeff Indiveri-Gant is the director of admissions for Montclair State University in New Jersey. He says good grades and state test scores are important, but so is being well-rounded. He says Montclair looks for leadership qualities, extracurricular activities and more in addition to academic performance.

But are schools in a sense coddling students and making them less ambitious? Dr. Joshua Rosenthal, a child psychologist in Manhattan, says it depends.

Despite students loving the idea of no rankings, valedictorians

Parents on the other hand: "No that's not fair" and "I think competition is what makes this country great," we were told.