I went to a specialized school in New York (prominent alums older than me include Elena Kagan and Cynthia Nixon; younger than me, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Chris Hayes), and we lacked some of the traditional delineations of high-school popularity. We had no football team, and other athletes might be popular along with their sports prowess but not because of it. (I was co-captain of the tennis team, myself; had no effect on my social standing, but I was generally well-liked to begin with.) We had no cheerleaders and no homecoming. Had a prom, but no king or queen. The group that seemed to feature the most popular kids was musical theater, surprisingly enough (seemed totally natural at the time). And we weren’t officially ranked, so no formal valedictorian or salutatorian.
Kids who worked in the school office sometimes got hold of the unofficial rankings, though, so we knew that the No. 1 in the class was a very quiet girl who never partied and seemed to have few friends. She became a doctor, like many of our classmates. The No. 2 student was a girl who was rich, popular and beautiful, so not much wrong with her life! She’s a psychologist and academic now.
All in all, we’ve mostly done pretty well, with a lot of professors, doctors, journalists and creatives. A fair number in finance, including one top investment manager who’s become super-rich and is a generous philanthropist. I always look forward to our reunions, which are warm, friendly and full of laughter.
We had a funny discussion on our class’s Facebook group recently. One classmate said he found another classmate’s LinkedIn page, which said the page’s owner had been valedictorian in high school. Oops! Much rollicking discussion ensued, but we still don’t know who it was.