"Ugh, I hope there's some kind of reasonable explanation; the only possible point to having grades is to incentivize work and to make it easy to tell whether you've learned everything you needed to. If they're not the same for everyone they're less useful."

Also important: showing off your desirability as an ally, which also benefits from objectivity. Unless the school is trying to use grades to directly indicate desirability as an ally and giving enclavers bonuses for having lots of mana and cool spells and good gear?? No, that's insane.

"Enclavers specialize, they train longer and better, and they have allies from when they're born. That's a big help. My mom trained us as well as she could- two of my older siblings graduated. I have a good chance, as long as I don't waste it."

Essays are kind of easy; the hard part is going to be when he has to solve math problems. Riley makes a few notes about how to tighten the paragraphs- some kids don't know how to rein themselves in, he thinks, which is hopefully a problem he never runs into. Slow and steady.

"It's not surprising to me. I don't think there can be more than 20 or so seniors left who are seriously trying for valedictorian. It's not just a bad tradeoff if you're an enclaver, it's a bad tradeoff if you're not a genius and you have any other option – a useful affinity or a maintenance track agreement or anything at all. So assume twenty smart kids who actually care, it doesn't seem strange that the rest of the top fifty would be the ones with more resources and slack." 

"I'd expect more than that, at least in people who try it early on before realizing they can't manage it, or before finding a better strategy that wasn't immediately obvious, but hopefully you're right and that's all it is."

"I bet people who can't manage it notice and change tracks pretty quickly, and then they have three years of focusing on the other thing going into the average." Write write edit edit essays are easy once you have a solid idea of what to say.

And when they all finish in time, they can swap their essays back in the other direction. Two extra peers to review your work; Riley feels pretty confident about the value he's adding to this particular study group. Grammatical corrections, vocabulary substitutions, notes about flow, and commentary on the argument itself- he's got this.  He just needs to show up on time going forward.

"That's why you shouldn't go off the reservation- it's not worth doing something different for most of us. Safer to stay on the rails."

"No matter how cruel those rails are to the ones at the bottom," she mutters, hopefully too quietly for anyone to overhear.

Theun doesn't make out the words... but he can guess, since he's thinking something similar.

He just shrugs and does his own editing pass on the essays passed to him.