<p>My wife was val at her high school. She got a degree in computer science back in the 70’s, met and married me, worked in industry for 10 years, stayed home to raise our three kids, and now we have retired early and goof off all day while we wait for grandkids. Does that count as fizzling out?</p>
<p>Not sure if this girl was the valedictorian at my HS, but my mother always wanted me to ‘be like her’. Smart, athletic, on lots of teams and clubs.</p>
<p>She’s the head trauma surgeon at a hospital in philly.</p>
<p>I have no idea what her life is like outside of work, but my mother still reminds me how ‘successful’ she became.</p>
<p>dt123 - That sounds like the pinnacle of success to me!</p>
<p>^^me too dt123</p>
<p>Thanks for all the interesting comments. There has been at least one retrospective research study on this issue, which I won’t characterize as to its conclusion because I don’t have it at hand. It sounds to me like most of you know some very accomplished former high school classmates.</p>
<p>You all are better than I am. My HS grad class was over 1000 students. I don’t even remember who the val and sal were (we had them…just don’t remember who they were). In fact, I don’t remember the Val from DS’s HS grad class and that was 2003.</p>
<p>One of my siblings graduated valedictorian at 16, became an chemical engineer and was hired as the “country” president (assigned to an Asian country) of a multi-national chemical company by age 27. He is now in his early 50’s and as far as I can see, he has not fizzled out yet. And yes, he is an awfully nice guy.</p>
<p>"I don’t think it’s easy to quantify success, so it’s hard to tell from externals who’s fizzled and burned and who hasn’t. I’d never consider someone who may have chosen a “more lowly” career (stay-at-home mom? teacher?) to have fizzled, anyway. (I mention these only because they’ve come up previously in the thread - I don’t think of either as being lowly at all!) Instead, I think about how lucky that person’s kids or students are that someone so intellectually talented wants to channel that talent and drive into a nurturing profession.</p>
<p>Drug/alcohol problems are easier to see, of course. But addiction and mental illness are equal opportunity misfortunes, aren’t they? I don’t think vals are more susceptible to them." </p>
<p>Great post! I agree.</p>
<p>In addition to being smart, most Vals work hard to achieve because they are very highly motivated, and that motivation comes from within. However, I can’t help but think that there are some parents who pressure their kids to achieve perfection in high school. Once off to college and away from direct parental influence, some of these Vals may rebel and change their priorities. As others have stated, happiness and success don’t necessarily come from high GPAs and advanced degrees.</p>
<p>“Studies have consistently shown that 50% of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their medical school class.”</p>
<p>I have two vals (both NMF too). The oldest is in med school, just finished his first semester. He’s kinda in the middle of the pack, which is new for him, but not too much a bother overall. He’s trying to make sure he has some normal fun in his life too. Massive studies, but finding time to play a bit too. Starting playing rugby (as did the orthopedic surgeon he shadowed in college) and found a nice Irish bar in staint louie… He’s doing OK. Going into medicine, it is also important to develope interpersonal skills with different people. Working on the social side of life is also important. He’s very smart, no worries there. Just want him to be able to relate with patients.</p>
<p>One of his fellow vals, is taking a job with an insurance company, which I am sure bugs his parents. They took on alot of debt for his dream school and really not much to show.
Another a sal, is in med school in Texas. </p>
<p>D is soph in college and is doing fine. On track for vet school. Works very hard, but is stopping to smell the flowers everyso often as well. Which is good because she puts alot of pressure on herself and having a little fun while still getting good grades 3.85 as a bio/chem major is important. </p>
<p>One of her fellow vals, fell into deep depression first year. Last fall at the begining of school year, she ran away to the midwest and married her internet financee, a man as old as I am and dropped out. A good friend of my D, she actually made my D miserable because of the whole thing. Nobody wants to see their friend suffer a mental illness and basically refuse her meds and go off the deep end. </p>
<p>So I know stuff happens, so far, knock wood, it hasn’t happened to mine.</p>
<p>I too, see to remember an extensive study on Vals and what became of them. It was discussed here on CC a few years ago. If I remember correctly from that study, most Vals generally did go on to become successful, but not spectacularly successful (i.e., multi-millionaire CEOs, business tycoons, etc). Wish I or someone could dig up that study.</p>
<p>Karen Arnold has done several studies - here’s one summary [Valedictorians</a> Don’t Stay At The Head of The Class, Says Education Researcher](<a href=“http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v4/N2/ARNOLD.html]Valedictorians”>http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v4/N2/ARNOLD.html)</p>
<p>mathmom, That’s exactly the study I was thinking of. Thanks!</p>
<p>The study that mathmom posted a link to:
"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>Arnold’s latest book, Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians , profiles 15 of the valedictorians, utilizing over 11,000 pages of interview transcripts she has accumulated during the 14-year project. She has followed the progress of these top high school achievers to study the nature of academic success, its costs and rewards, and its effects on career and personal life. 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>The above doesn’t surprise me. Think about it: There are hundreds of thousands of valedictorians in the U.S. Most aren’t going to become famous or change the world.</p>
<p>“But while valedictorians may not change the world, they run it and run it well, since they are the best of the mainstream.”</p>
<p>“Her subjects are now 32 years old and most work in conventional careers as accountants, physicians, lawyers, engineers, physical therapists, nurses and teachers. Others chose different paths - one became a poet, another a social justice activist. Four never finished college and five of the women, two with master’s degrees and two with doctorates, are out of the labor force rearing children.”</p>
<p>None of the above surprises me. Most also would be considered successful according to conventional standards. I think that some people unrealistically expect all valedictorians to become Nobel Prize winners, CEOs of Fortune 500s, U.S. senators, but of course, that would not be possible.</p>
<p>“Arnold was surprised by the extraordinary gender differences that surfaced in the study. By their sophomore year in college, the female valedictorians had lowered their intellectual estimation of themselves as well as their career aspirations because they were concerned about combining motherhood and a demanding career, even though most didn’t even have a boyfriend at the time, she said…”</p>
<p>What surprises me is that they lowered their intellectual estimation of themselves. To lower their career aspirations might be very realistic if they want to combine motherhood and a career and spend a great deal of time being a mom. This particularly would be true if they had been planning on very demanding careers such as being an astronaut, surgeon or international lawyer.</p>
<p>that’s a bit of a generalization, no? and just cuz he/she’s a valedictorian, doesn’t mean he/she worked hard in high school…lol</p>
<p>My class valedictorian is an MD. During my years in law school, I noticed that a few of the “hardworking obey all the rules straight A types” experienced difficulty during the first year of law school. Probably due to the fact that memorization of the material does not assure success in law school. They all seemed to do much better in the second and third years of law school, but did not make law review and always found law school to be a lot of hard work. A recent graduating class from an elite prep school had three top students. One is temporarily burnt out and taking a year off. One at Yale. And the other turned down Yale and Princeton to attend a more social Ivy with a touch less pressure.</p>
<p>For those who are old enough, we’ve done the research, though each a single-case study, and without formal experimental controls. The purpose of the 25th HS reunion is to confirm that HS stats predict little.
Signed, a student in the lower fifth of my HS class and a sub-1100 SAT (what a joke the SAT/ACT is -better that we go back to predicting aptitude by feeling the contours of the skull). But I did graduate Summa from a college that no longer exists; had to put myself through, so it took awhile - lots of evening and weekend classes, given that I worked full time. Some college in upstate NY gave me a degree while I was in the military.
P.S. Perhaps its my record that explains why one of the two Ivy schools that I interviewed with for a Prof. job a number of years ago turned me down. Kudos for those who think that HS limits their learning. Three cheers for those who look at those at the top of their HS class and chuckle. Ask one of them for a dance at the reunion. It’s a treat.
Sorry for the hyperbole (though there is none), but sometime ‘kynic’ must speak.</p>
<p>The top students in our class for the most part are doing very well, though many took time off for children which slowed down some careers. There are some surprises though 25 years down the line. The person who became the college professor is not the one I would have pegged as the future academic. There are a few people who have gone on to have more interesting careers than I would have expected. The person who became an editor at a leading producer of romance fiction on the other hand is absolutely perfect for the job.</p>
<p>Our val was working as a cashier in a local grocery store a few years after HS. Of course, back then our HS didn’t have weighted GPA’s, so some of the vals just took fluff courses. I suspect the bar is set higher these days.</p>
<p>At my kids’ school, the top 10 (or more) were separated by miniscule differences in GPA - and honors and gifted courses are not weighted, so those top students are somewhat mixed. Determining what happened to the Val would simply be a tenth of the picture and somewhat random. That is, it wouldn’t necessarily be “the best and brightest” of the school - perhaps only the one who chose classes well, or who sucked up to teachers, or whatever. Of the vals and sals I’m aware of, they’ve all continued a predictable path. Many have been successful in school, but I’m not aware of anyone being “super successful” - more successful that anyone else in the class. I am aware of a few “super successful” students who were near the top, but not the top. My kids all had graduating classes of about 800, so it doesn’t surprise me a bit that the title doesn’t guarantee the “most” success. We’ve never had a val who absolutely did not belong - the val has always been a good student. But only one of many who could have fit the profile.</p>