<p>that’s how it is at my school…the really “popular” ones are sporty, smart, attractive…i think the entire BC calc class is made of the most popular kids in the school. </p>
<p>actually, i think that smarts and attractiveness often show up together…of course, smarts doesn’t necessarily mean common sense.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you guys, but I think the trend in my school is set of by a few things:</p>
<p>a) Popular kids realize the smart ones are going to be the ones signing the paychecks one day for them…</p>
<p>b) The “Harvard… WOW” shock</p>
<p>c) Hmmm, three years of mocking you… you guys may not be so bad after all</p>
<p>d) It’s not as if they are TOTAL geeks…</p>
<p>but a lot of the scenarios that you guys have stated are what I am experiencing, but in a lesser light (I’m a freshman varsity athlete who is also pretty smart… I guess…).</p>
<p>I have NO idea how popularity works in any system. None of my school’s have popularity have any method to the madness.</p>
<p>I mean, yes, attractiveness is an automatic ticket to popularity but beyond that there’s a lot of insanity.</p>
<p>The trend never really changes… but there doesn’t manage to be much of a trend in the first place so that’s easy to maintain.</p>
<p>Myself as the example:
I’m ranked first in my class, in all honors/AP classes, don’t play any sports at school (yet), and definitely miss all of those points by a long shot. But I’m… well-known to put it lightly. I mean I REALLY don’t mean to sound like I’m full of myself as there are more popular kids at school but it’s hard to notice where you fall in the ladder. In any case, yeah I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’m popular-ish at my school (a pretty lower-middle academic standing public high school). So, even though there are a solid selection of people who meet the criteria (barring the academic standards as some popular kids are quite brilliant) including drugs, partying, and sex, there’s a few that just happen to be up there. Er… scratch that… I can’t think of anyone in my school that’s popular that doesn’t meet most of those criteria besides me… WOW I really can’t find a way of putting this post without sounding like I’m either in denial, a complete liar, or completely overconfident (or some idiotic trifecta). Oh well.</p>
<p>So put simply I guess (self-diagnosing) you could meet all of those criteria or just be really really out there. As in walk in the first day of school (freshman year), sit in the middle of the hall the entire day meditating until security has to drag you away. Return wearing a necklace composed primarily of small, yellow, rubber ducks (that squeak) and continue to wear that for however long you want. Sprinkle a bit of telling off everyone who decides to be a total dick to you and you’ve got a similar result. Basically the whole thing of “don’t give a crap about what other people think of you” but to an elevated level.</p>
<p>The only other people who tend to be well known are the OVERLY nice people that everyone just loves and gets along with really well. No one messes with them and they never express any sense of anything but kindness/joy. You need both though. I mean the former attribute usually comes along with being popular at all, and the latter can happen easily but no one needs to return the favor. But when you’ve got both it’s kind of a beautiful thing. But that’s rare.</p>
<p>In any case, there’s no trend I can identify. While few people do fit the stereotypical characteristics, there are enough exceptions (one or two) to blow the whole thing in my eyes.</p>
<p>no such thing as popularity in my school. everyone has their own group of closer friends and a bunch of other acquaintances</p>
<p>Nothing really changes at my school. It’s just that people become more divided. AP kids start only interacting with other AP kids as they progress through HS and basically that’s where the -super- intelligent kids (but not total nerds) are coveted.</p>
<p>^ I agree with mulberrypie. As a freshman or sophomore at my school, you are more limited in honors classes and AP classes [and even junior year somewhat since 2 or 3 of the APs are only allowed senior year] so earlier in high school, you interact with the regular class kids too. Later since you are able to take more of these classes, if you’re in honors/APs you only talk to the kids who are also in those classes since you don’t have classes with the regular kids anymore. Last semester when I had AP Gov our teacher was actually making fun of us for being in AP and asked if we all sat together at lunch and had our own nerdy little AP table and it was funny because we totally did. I guess birds of a feather really do flock together.</p>
<p>You are a freshman. You know nothing.</p>
<p>Anyways, at my school, if you are good looking, you will most likely be popular. Plus there are lots of good looking kids who are smart and popular at the same time, but a lot of them are just jocks who party hardy. The parties I go to, I will see just a bunch of varsity athletes, and even some good students (who are attractive or very amiable) drinking and doing drugs together.</p>
<p>Maybe my school’s different, or I just don’t notice, but we don’t have what you would say “popular” groups. I mean there are the cliques, but no particular group where it’s THE group that <em>everyone</em> wants to join. Anyway, our clique is pretty kewl, it’s like 98% Asian and we’re basically the top 10 percent of the school or so.</p>
<p>being smart is a plus at my school, but intelligence alone doesn’t make someone cool. other factors are:</p>
<p>1) appearance
2) willingness to drink and hook up with girls
3) athletic ability</p>
<p>Intelligence by itself is an enviable quality. But it’s when smart kids get so focused on their work that they become antisocial, stop caring about their looks, stop playing sports, etc. that it becomes a bad thing.</p>
<p>All the class presidents in my grade have been 4.0 GPA, 1400+, many ECs students so I think that sums up the feelings of popularity at my school.</p>
<p>Like many others have said, there are so many cliques that there is not really a popular group, but there are popular people from each group whom every other group likes. </p>
<p>EXAMPLES:
<p>Basically, if you do sports, no one cares about you or hangs out with you except for other people who do sports (except for crew kids, which we have a lot of). My school doesn’t have sports so the sports kids have to do sports at their districted schools, which isolates them anyway.</p>
<p>Many groups still party on the weekend, including the intelligent kids. Though, hard drugs are never used… just lots and lots of alcohol.</p>
<p>I run Windows and OS X on my Macbook, and Linux on my server.</p>
<p>I go to a school with 6,000+ kids. This is how our popularity goes: </p>
<p>-If you do pot or drink, eh whatever. If you do hard drugs, you are NOT cool and are generally shunned.
-Grades do matter a bit. As long as you try to pass, it’s cool.
-Disrespecting teachers is a HUGE no-no. Most of our teachers are very well liked and disrespecting them will get everyone turned against you (except for a few teachers).
-Theater kids tend to be cool. Most of the lead actors are really popular.
-Sports kind of suck at my school. Nobody’s really impressed if you’re a jock. It’s really downplayed.
-Sluts are not wanted. We had an AIDs scare at my school a few years back and now it’s not cool to be loose.
-You have to be nice. Being a jerk will not get you far.</p>
<p>I guess we’re not the typical high school, but there really aren’t a lot of “popular” kids. There are probably about 10 kids in my school that everyone could pick out of a crowd, and those kids are all really nice and definitely don’t fit into any of the “popular” stereotypes.</p>
<p>Most of the people who are “cool” at my school went to the same two sixth-grade academies and were in the “cool” crowd there. When they moved into this school, their “cool” status just translated with them. I think the trend is that they play sports, wear cool clothes, make a habit out of not doing homework (and bragging about it, but you have to keep at least a ~2.9 to remain cool), and have had sex at least once. </p>
<p>If you find academia interesting, you’re far from cool at my school.</p>
<p>@Mushrooshi: O_O Nice. I don’t know many people who dual-boot their Macbooks.</p>
<p>LoonLake’s criteria sound pretty representative of my school (thought toned down a bit because it IS a junior high).</p>
<p>My old school (I moved in October) wwas completeky different. There were some “popular” people, but mostly people just kept to their own groups annd had a couple friends from another group (think of a massive venn diagram). And LoonLake’s criteria would have gotten you kicked out. It was a maget school with a great student body. I hate my new school.</p>
<p>How do you let people who you hate be popular? If no one likes them how could the possible be popular? There are people at my school that you may describe as “popular” but I wouldn’t place that label on them because no one likes or respects them.</p>
<p>the point is that some people DO like them. The other popular people that are exactly alike them.</p>
<p>Other people are just enablers. Popular people alwyas look better or have some sort of charisma that makes people envious, which feeds the popularity. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.</p>
<p>God, CC is like my new crack. It has now replaced Facebook, and before that, Runescape, as my addiction.</p>
<p>Yeah. I see what you’re saying. I guess my school is too cliquey for traditional popularity. Over half of the school is “gangster” so there’s less people talk about.</p>
<p>At my school, theres one particular popular people. I’d say theres like 4 big groups. The biggest would be the preppy sports people(football,basketball,and baseball) who are decently smart for 1 or 2 ap class. During the weekend, they party like crazy and some of them are not virgins. </p>
<p>Another group are all the mexicans because there is a large group</p>
<p>Another group would be the skaters and drug users/drinkers</p>
<p>Lastly would be a group of people who lives a balanced life of AP classes and innocent fun such as listening to music and watching movies.</p>
<p>I swear, my own group of 10 people are the only asian group at school.</p>