My daughter recently graduated with honors from a U.S. state university (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, et al). I am not aware of occasions when they would or could be photographed wearing something distinctive that would satisfy Machiavelli that they were honor students, except at commencement time as they graduate. Maybe in Europe there are lots of occasions to assemble or dress up in academic garb; that is not the case in the U.S.
I looked at University of Washington's admissions statistics and see that half of all high school students with a Grade Point Average of 3.76 (that is a AAAB average) who applied for admission last year to University of Washington were rejected for admission. That tells me Knox was a very strong student when she was admitted to her university two years before coming to Italy for her junior-year abroad.
What is really noteworthy is Machiavelli's repeated effort to question that Knox was what we Americans refer to as an honor student. His desire is to undermine her and cast aspersions on her to make her fit better into his scenario that she was at her residence the night Kerscher was murdered and that she participated in (and orchestrated) it.
Machiavelli is very sharp and able to construct scenarios based on false evidence. He really should look at the physical evidence that shows that Guede broke into the residence through Filomena's window and alone killed Kerscher within minutes of arriving home. But he won't do that because he is not looking to critically examine the evidence. He is protecting Mignini and Stefanoni.
I discussed about the physical evidence at the murder scene for years, I did that that from the beginning of my presence on Dempsey's blog. I discussed the evidence that show multiple perpetrators; different modus operandi on the scene; the evidence showing the break in was staged; I discussed about the bloody footprint; I discussed about the autopsy report.
They I got tired. I've said my opinions; should I repeat myself forever? I see many other issues topics developed meanwihile. It's ok for me to speak again about those topics, but it would be impossible to follow many topics at once.
As for Knox's being a honor student or not: the topic is brought in by someone else. It was another poster who claimed that being a 'honour student' should be somehow cause a withdrawal of my idea of girl who was basically following a interest in fun experiences rather than an academic one (in that period of her life).
I don't think the objection has a merit.
But I question in fact also what "honors student" means in the mind of the America speakers who claim it, because, if I have to make a parallel with the Italian university system (thus what my mentality refers to), I would assume that a core aspect would be the "study plan", the program. The main distinction in Italian universities is between students who are perfectly "in course" and those who are out of course (not as "structured" within the academic plan). Knox appears as a person who has drifted out of her academic plan, she was not sent there in agreement with her university, and not on a sctructured exchange plan.
This may only reflect the point of view of a person used to the relatively rigid mindset of Italian universities.
For students attending Italian universities, the marks they had at the high school have absolutely zero relevance and would be very strange that someone was called a "honor student" based on them; high school marks may concur to the admission criteria for some university courses, but it's not a university-based thing, it's for courses on national basis: there is no difference between universities, there are no universities with more selective admission critera than others. In Germany is the same.
And after all, it seems rather strange to me that the lifestyle of Amanda Knox in Perugia is thought as if she was the same person of when he was a 17-18 years old high school student.
But the point of view doesn't change anything. The whole topic about a "honor student" status awarded by a US university is irrelevant to the point. It doesn't affect my idea of Knox as a person who was "only living to pursue pleasure" (as Sollecito described her), and who would be ready to have sexual encounters with a person that fits the profile of Guede, despite she had also an intense relation with Sollecito. Also the other details that I mentioned fit the scenario. It's not that this "undermines" her: this is just the the person she was at that time; it may undermine later clichés which are attached preposterously to build a rhetoric in her defence, making her her look like an 'alien' in the scenario (seeking for a cliché, like trying to convey a 'picture' that some may unconsciously associate with the words "honors student").
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