Class and Ranking Systems in And They Were Roommates

Defining the Thematic Claim

At Valentine Academy, a rigid class and ranking system governs nearly every aspect of student life. Weekly grade averages are posted publicly, determining who holds prestige, who qualifies for the Excellence Scholarship, and who risks humiliation or expulsion. The novel’s central thematic claim is that such systems conflate numerical performance with human worth, magnifying anxiety and masking deeper inequalities of privilege. While the academy sells itself as a meritocracy, characters like Charlie von Hevringprinz discover that wealth, family connections, and social status often matter as much as raw ability. The ranking apparatus both exposes and deepens the divide between students who can afford to fail and those whose futures hang on a decimal point.

The Public Grade Ranking System

The academy’s Weekly Grade Ranks board sits in a central courtyard, visible to everyone. It lists all second-year students by full name and average, ranked from one to forty-six. The top five names are marked with heart stickers. As Charlie observes in Chapter 5, the system is designed to “perform the best in the nation because they fear humiliation in a public forum.” The board turns academic standing into a spectator sport, forcing students to measure themselves against peers daily. For Charlie, an Excellence Scholar who must remain in the top five to keep his scholarship, the stakes are existential.

Plot Developments That Expose the System’s Impact

Charlie’s First Encounter with the Rankings

In Chapter 5, Charlie rushes to the grade rank board after his first week. He discovers that his online grades never carried over—his name does not appear at all—while Jasper Grimes sits at number one with a perfect 100/100. The revelation triggers both relief (“I’m not on the list… yet”) and nausea: he must climb into the top five by the next week or lose his scholarship. This moment establishes the core tension: Charlie’s worth at the academy is measured by a public number over which he has limited control, especially when his body and identity already make him vulnerable.

The Squeeze of PE and Grading

Physical education presents another layer of the ranking system. In Chapter 9, Charlie struggles to complete the required ten laps and receives a C grade from Ms. Nallos, who remarks that Valentine’s grading is about “results” unless a student has a doctor’s note. The communal showers expose Charlie to the fear of being seen naked, forcing him to choose between hygiene and safety. The PE grade drops his overall average, making the top-five requirement even more precarious. This plot thread shows how the ranking system extends beyond the classroom, punishing students whose bodies do not conform to the athletic norm—another form of privilege tied to wealth, extracurricular training, and cisgender ease.

The Climax: Jasper’s Intervention

The most direct challenge to the grading system occurs in Chapter 41, when Principal Grimes informs Charlie that the board of trustees has agreed to remove ranking requirements for Excellence Scholars. This change came because Jasper convinced several students with influential, wealthy parents to threaten an op-ed about Valentine’s “antiquated ways.” Here, the novel acknowledges that systemic reform often requires insider privilege: Jasper’s family connections as the principal’s nephew and his access to donor families enable what merit alone could not. Charlie realizes that his own hard work and tutoring of others (as shown in Chapter 14’s STRIP hierarchy) were never enough to change the rules—only a student with Jasper’s social capital could shift the board.

Character Connections to Class and Ranking

Charlie von Hevringprinz embodies the precarious position of a scholarship student. His mother was also an Excellence Scholar, yet her family viewed her bookstore career as a “waste” of the opportunity (Chapter 2). Charlie’s fear of being outed as transgender intertwines with his fear of losing the scholarship; both threats stem from the academy’s rigid norms. He tutors other students in STRIP but remains isolated, convinced that any friend could expose his secret.

Jasper Grimes occupies the opposite pole: Rank One, principal’s nephew, son of privilege. Yet his poetry reveals a sensitivity that cuts against the competitive ethos. By using his family influence to abolish the ranking requirement for Excellence Scholars, Jasper demonstrates that the system can be changed—but only by those already at the top. His arc complicates the meritocracy myth: the system rewards him, but he also uses his power to dismantle it.

Delilah represents an external perspective from the sister campus. She understands Charlie’s pressure intellectually but cannot fully grasp the stakes because her parents are “doctors drowning in money” (Chapter 2). The wall between campuses — the “cockblockade” — physically separates male and female students, but class and wealth also separate them from each other.

Supporting characters like Robby (a low-ranked student obsessed with horse trading cards) and Blaze (who fears spiders but uses his slingshot heroically) occupy varying rungs in the social ladder. The STRIP program itself, with its “horse hierarchy” for determining tutoring order (Chapter 14), mirrors the larger ranking system on a smaller scale.

Symbolic Resonance

The weekly grade rank board is the most obvious symbol of the class system—a public display of worth. The heart stickers on the top five names mock the idea that love or friendship might exist in such a competitive environment. The shared bookcase in Charlie and Jasper’s room (a symbol from the book) represents the opposite: a space where intellectual and emotional exchange happens outside the ranking system. Similarly, blackout poetry (another symbol) allows Charlie to express hidden truths without full disclosure, a creative escape from the academy’s rigid metrics.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel does not present the ranking system as entirely evil. It motivates Charlie to study harder, and Mr. Stern (Chapter 31) insists that “those ranks don’t mark true intelligence.” Jasper’s perfect 100 seems to come effortlessly, yet he chooses to spend his time writing poetry rather than competing. The contradiction is that the system both rewards excellence and punishes those without resources. When the board removes ranking requirements, Principal Grimes notes that it “takes baby steps with the board of trustees,” implying that deeper structural issues remain. The thematic resolution is not a utopia but a realistic compromise: Jasper uses privilege to carve out space for Charlie, while Charlie learns to accept help.

Study Questions

1. What is the “Unspoken Guideline” behind the public grade rankings, and how does it shape Charlie’s behavior in his first week?
   Answer: The guideline is that students perform best because they fear humiliation. Charlie studies obsessively, avoids making friends, and hides his identity to avoid attracting attention. The public rankings make every misstep visible.

2. How does the PE grading system in Chapter 9 illustrate the intersection of class, gender, and privilege?
   Answer: PE grades depend on raw results (number of laps), ignoring that Charlie’s body is still adjusting to testosterone and that he cannot comfortably use the communal showers. Wealthier students who had private training or a safe locker room are privileged.

3. Why does Jasper’s intervention in Chapter 41 succeed where Charlie’s hard work did not?
   Answer: Jasper’s family connections, especially his aunt being principal and his access to donor families, give him leverage to pressure the board. Charlie’s merit alone could not change the system; structural change requires insider power.

4. How does the “horse hierarchy” in STRIP (Chapter 14) mirror the academy’s ranking system?
   Answer: Students draw trading cards to determine the order they receive help from Jasper, turning service into a random draw that privileges luck over need. The “maintain horse hierarchy” chant parodies the real ranking system, showing how it pervades even unofficial spaces.

5. What role does Delilah play in challenging or reinforcing the class system?
   Answer: Delilah supports Charlie emotionally and provides sparklers as a distraction during the Halloween mixer, but she cannot fully empathize because her family’s wealth shields her from scholarship pressure. She reinforces the barrier between privilege and need, even as she tries to help.