<p>Article about what becomes of high school valedictorians. Bottom line of this particular study, according to the article, is:</p>
<p>"They obey rules, work hard and like learning, but they're not the mold breakers," said [author, Professor Karen] Arnold of the 81 Illinois high school valedictorians - 46 women and 35 men - she has tracked since their graduation in 1981. "They work best within the system and aren't likely to change it."</p>
<p>I have to agree with this...both my kids were vals, and while they continue to be high achievers, I would definitely not expect them to be mold breakers.</p>
<p>one of my friends fiance was val of her high school class. she recently graduated first in her class (I believe) at BU. I know she did a speech a their graduation.</p>
<p>Well, in my personal experience, the jury is still out. My oldest was val and she is a high achiever. I don't know yet if she'll be a mover and shaker and change the world. I do know that in high school, she WAS a mover and shaker and did make some changes to her school. She initiated, researched, developed and created a policy for her school that took two years of review before faculty and eventually she presented it to the school board and it was adopted. She then went through this uphill process a second time on another issue that she wrote a school policy about. Even one of her recs commented that they hadn't seen a kid effect change in the school like that. So, I don't know what will be with her but she does have a tendency to lead and to effect change and to challenge things. Whether she'll be a renegade, not sure. She tends to please people and do the "right thing" but if she cares about something strongly, she will go after the issue. I don't yet know if she'll be a mold breaker but so far, I have seen instances where she can and has been. Other times she is a pleaser of others and iis the agreeable sort in general. </p>
<p>My other kid was not val though had a good rank (she graduated early, so it wasn't truly her class...also we have unweighted GPA and rank and she took the most challenging classes....so that affects our ranking here). She is the mold breaker and mover/shaker. She is also a high achiever even if not a val. She is not the agreeable sort and tends to challenge things.</p>
<p>I think the question is too narrowly defined as just speaking of vals. Certainly many students other than val are also high achievers....pretty much all the "top" students in a class can fit into that characterization. At our high school, a lot of the movers and shakers and leaders tended to also be the very good students. The students at the other spectrum at our HS, tended to be uninvolved.</p>
<p>The val of my graduating class of 2001 (accepted to Harvard but followed the scholarships to Kansas) ended up getting heavily into cocaine, scammed his 5 roommates out approximately $8000, and disappeared from friends and family for about 5 months to avoid paying off his gambling debts...Not sure how that fits in with not challenging the system.</p>
<p>From the article:
"As high school valedictorians, they were the best and the brightest. Now, as adults, most of them are successful, well-adjusted and psychologically healthy, according to Asst. Prof. Karen Arnold (SOE), but in the working world they no longer find themselves at the head of the class.
"They obey rules, work hard and like learning, but they're not the mold breakers," said Arnold of the 81 Illinois high school valedictorians - 46 women and 35 men - she has tracked since their graduation in 1981. "They work best within the system and aren't likely to change it."</p>
<p>...Valedictorians, Arnold says, often find their callings in ways which differ from expectations others have of them, including their college professors.</p>
<p>"They're extremely well rounded and successful, personally and professionally," she said, "but they've never been devoted to a single area in which they put all their passion. That is not usually a recipe for eminence. The opportunities to become famous or change the world as an accountant, for example, are few and far between."</p>
<p>To me, it sounds like what one would expect. Most people are not going to change the world. Most people, including most top students will be quite fortunate if they do become well rounded and successful. It's not as if every high school (or college) val is likely to become mayor, governor or president.</p>
<p>My husband was val of his h.s., a large academically competitive public high school in Chicago. When he graduated from h.s., he planned to be a minister. Later, he planned to be a college professor of German. After getting a national-level graduate fellowship, he went to grad school, discovered journalism and ended up being a newspaper editor who was over staff in several foreign and national bureaus of a large metroplitan paper, and now is a full professor at a college. We've been married more than 25 years. He has, I think, a nice, fulfilling life with career success and a positive impact on others.</p>
<p>I went to an excellent public high school in a small town in NY State. The val of my class went to Harvard then became a minister. He married shortly after graduating from college, and is minister over a church in Michigan. He is still married to his original wife. He is not famous, but is living a life that seems to be fulfilling, ethical and of service to others. </p>
<p>I think that the people who are most likely to have impact on the world are those who are either smart, savvy risk takers (and consequently probably don't have the best grades in high school, but may grow up to be successful entrepreneurs) or are people who are at least above average in terms of intelligence and have excellent people skills. Those are the people who may become highly successful sales people and politicians.</p>
<p>Because of the current job market, it's important for most people to have high school grades strong enough to get to some college, other than that I doubt that high school grades correlate that much with whether people become rich or famous.</p>
<p>You know 81 people from one year is a pretty small sample size considering how many high schools you have in the United States...</p>
<p>Lol... stereotyping vals as no-questions-asked rule followers and do-gooders is just that- stereotyping.</p>
<p>I happen to be a val and I p iss off teachers-- and I'm the last one in all these 'accelerated' classes to follow any rules or get these papers signed, do homework correctly... watever. Not your standard c ock-sucking val, I know, but are you sure the creator of this negative stereotype of vals as Ned Flanders doesn't harbor a bit of resentment towards valedictorians?</p>
<p>How many people 'change the system'? How many people 'change the world'?</p>
<p>Most valedictorians are probably academically RELATIVELY even. Probably most system/world changers are a bit more 'uneven'.</p>
<p>Most valedictorians are successful within a system.....why change it??</p>
<p>From what I have seen, class valedictorians are pretty evenly good at many things; however, sometimes the reason they are the val in the first place is that they played the system well. They might have not been big risk takers, they may not have explored classes that were unweighted or in areas they are not the best in. They protect their gpa's. I could believe that somebody a little further down the list may ultimately make the biggest impact in life.</p>
<p>Remember that not all high schools use weighted grades. Ours did not. So, someoene in the easiest classes could be val. So, there is no gaming here to be val as it has nothing to do with gaming the system. If anything the top students may not be val because they took the hardest classes. While my own kid was val and took the hardest classes, that didn't get her to val...if anything, it worked against her. </p>
<p>I think my D who was val will be successful at whatever she does because she is a go getter and is motivated and sets high standards for herself. I don't know that she'll change the world or be some big leader. She is the well rounded sort. She has a few passions. She leads but more in a quieter fashion.</p>
<p>My other D was not val but had a very good ranking. Like the other one, she is motivated and driven. She has more of a singular passion. She tends to be a mover and shaker and might be the type to make a big impact. She also tends to be the one more in the "limelight".</p>
<p>I tihink in either case, one can be successful. Further, more students than the val were excellent students across the board. Many more than the val are destined to be quite successful. I think the bigger contrast to look at are those near the top of the class (not just val) vs. those near the bottom.</p>
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I think my D who was val will be successful at whatever she does because she is a go getter and is motivated and sets high standards for herself. I don't know that she'll change the world or be some big leader. She is the well rounded sort. She has a few passions. She leads but more in a quieter fashion.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This sounds a lot like my S. He is also [one of] his class valedictorians and will be one of 2 of them who will be speaking at graduation. He almost declined because he is very quiet and is very nervous about speaking in front of hundreds (probably more like over 1000 as his class alone is 465).
He is not a mold-breaker but prefers to play by the rules and takes his responsibilities very seriously. He is a co-captain of his sport but leads more by example than by bossing people around.</p>
<p>Wasn't Andrea Yates a valedictorian?</p>
<p>I think kids at the top of their class, mine included, usually get there at least in part because they play by the rules. They go to class, study, do EC's, respect authority, etc. I have noticed, however, that fewer "rules" in college have encouraged my son to branch out a bit and take a few chances and I think this is a good thing. :)</p>
<p>My guess is that even if the study were expanded the results would be similar. For the most part, and like everything there's probably an exception somewhere, the vals and sals are not the ones that will set the world on fire. Those types of people range from high school drop-outs to the kid who got a "D" in Calculus and is now a nuclear engineer or some such thing to the person that you saw everyday but knew nothing about. The "set the world on fire people" are wired differently and that is exactly what high school is not about for the most part.</p>
<p>I still resent this stereotyping of vals. I often play texas hold em amongst friends, and I'd like to use it as an analogy.</p>
<p>Yes, I can play the system and beat the godamn "game."
Yet I still take huge gambles, however.</p>
<p>Just because I can play and beat the g.p.a. game doesn't mean I enjoy playing it or respect it at all.</p>
<p>In fact, one of my motivations in maintaning val status is to prove to those actual rule-followers and administration respecters that a nontraditional bad@ss such as myself can be ranked just as high as they are.</p>
<p>Enough of your stereotyping based on class rank. It's bad enough the pressure on kids to get as high a rank as possible, but now you all are even stereotyping and dissing the people who achieve rank 1. Enough already.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, Im willing to guarantee you that "the kid who got a 'D' in Calculus" will not become a nuclear engineer.</p>
<p>At UPenn last year, the Dean said he "liked the sals better, because they were more modest." LOL.</p>
<p>n1Big, I just got back to this post and I had to laugh because both my sister and brother got a "D" in a high school math class - I was at college so I don't know which Math class but it was soph or junior year so probably Calc or Alg II or something similar. I remember my parents calling me at college and just wailing about those two. They both ended up graduating from U of M Engineering Schools one in Nuclear Engineering and the other in Mechanical. They are both very successful today. I laughed out loud at your response. Neither of my sibs fit the high school "norm" they were just wired different. I try really hard not to judge my three boys, two who are "off the norm".</p>
<p>The val at my school this year wants to be a palientologist... not exactly a "mover and shaker" kind of profession.</p>
<p>That being said, my school doesn't choose val based on the academic average alone but also ec's and the auditioned speech. We had many qualified people apply, but this particular guy went to speech and debate provincials (definetly a factor). </p>
<p>But still... track and field, speech, debate, and dinosaurs? </p>
<p>???</p>