43 People Reveal What The Smart Kid From Their Class Achieved In Life

Got her PhD in psych and has written multiple papers on forced perfectionism in children.

She was always naturally brilliant, but God forbid she be anything less than perfect for her parents. Every club, every sport, every "volunteer" position, she had to do it all. Most people had no idea she was dealing with so much bad things at home.

I was a "smart" kid in both high school and college (top 1-2% in the class for each).

Those who place highly in school are just very good at... school. I placed top 5 in a class of 600 in high school and while I am remarkably good at school, I am... trash in the real world. I got a 4.0 GPA in my undergrad at a top 5 school for my degree, a very rigorous program.

I very quickly learned how to optimize and "game" the world of school. Everything is taught to you, there are so many resources, and every problem given to you has an intended solution, and rather than being "inventive", your job is just to find the intended solution. I am very good at this. If it's an easy class, there's no explanation necessary, and if it's a harder class, there's solution was usually just a fusion of multiple topics we learned in the class that we had never used in conjunction before. It was only a matter of brute force and elimination to determine the right path to take for most of these things, and there were rarely surprises.

Then comes the real world. It's so open-ended I don't even know where to start. You're being asked to solve potentially unsolvable problems. There are no guide rails or limits to the material you may need to draw from. I drowned so fast. So hard. It's so fascinating to me.

I'm currently unemployed because I've felt so overwhelmed by any employer I've been with. No one is on your side, and even doing the "right" thing is not the right answer in a lot of cases. There's office politics which were never taught to me. It was so much simpler back then.

There were a lot of intelligent and/or high achieving students at my high school, many of whom came from money, and many of whom went on to ivy leagues and top UCs, then on to grad school, etc. I don't keep up with most of them or know where they ended up, as I moved away after high school and never moved back.

There were 5 national merit scholar finalists in my graduating class, and I do know a little about them. One went on to undergrad at Yale, got his MD at Columbia, did his residency at UCLA, and is now an oncologist. One went to Harvard then Stanford, and is now a trial attorney. One went to Dartmouth, got her PhD and became a biologist. My ex did his undergrad at Brown, went on to Stanford for his PhD, and is now a materials engineer. And I went on to a top public university, dropped out during the financial crisis when my campus job was cut, and fell into whatever jobs I could find to pay the bills.

Fast forward through the chaos of my early twenties, and the rest is rather boring. I fell in love and got married, bought a house, and started my own business. At face value, I'm by far the least successful of the bunch. But my life is happy and full, I live comfortably, and I'm extremely grateful.

I'm also the only one who didn't come from a wealthy two parent family, and didn't have significant financial assistance. So I'm pretty proud of where I've ended up, all things considered. It took a lot of hard work to get here.

She went to boarding school with me and was my neighbor. We were at a boarding school specifically for academic achievement, so for her to be the smartest really is saying something, but she truly was. She could tell you so much about almost any topic, and taught me linear algebra on the floor of her dorm. We chose the same college, and were friends there too. She wasn’t just smart, she was kind, and funny, and she thought so deeply about the world and wanted to change the lives of so many. She went into soil science and biological engineering hoping to help with crop production during the era of global climate change. We both were placed in pretty high class placements our freshman year due to our classes in high school (think 300-500 levels for US colleges). I thought she (like me) was just struggling with the work load and adjustment to college and a new city.

Just before our Thanksgiving break our freshman year, she took her own life after jumping off her dorm building. I found out later that she was basically bullied to by a girl in her department who was jealous of her accomplishments as a freshman in college. She’d always had mental health issues, but I never expected that she’d be bullied to such a degree in college. It was awful to see, and even after her passing this girl didn’t stop. I can’t tell you what she would’ve been in life, or the things she could’ve done, but she was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met (and I’m an electrical engineer so I’ve met a good few). I wish this life had been kinder to her, I’d love to have gotten to see what amazing things she could’ve accomplished.

Our smartest guy was awesome and universally liked by all in school ( He avoided all the stereotypes - could throw a ball , do a pushup & pullup , sip a drink , bust a move in club and would get in trouble together with rest ) . He went on doing what he liked already in school - Physics and Mathematics university and became a professor. Can see him on tv often or in local youtube shorts talking about school / his students / experiments and in general he is a good PR = education can be fun.

They went to MIT on a full scholarship and eventually became a brain surgeon.

Got MS while in college, which went downhill rather quickly. 

It s***s. She is a lovely person who wanted to teach elementary school, and it completely derailed her plans.

If we are going strictly on top ten GPA, I know this because I am friends with several still:

- C suite at Fortune 500
- burned out after college
- went to one of the military academies, high ranking in that service
- went into the navy, became naval nuclear engineer
- went to theology school, became a pastor

I guess I'll toot my own horn as well since at least 2 of those guys have acknowledged I was smarter than them but my GPA did not reflect it:

- started college 2 years early, burned out of education before I was 18, but have a successful career in IT and am Director at an org that has won the "journalism EGOT" of a Pulitzer, Peabody, Murrow, and Polk awards.

I was my high school valedictorian and the definition of an overachiever--varsity athlete, student council, National Honor Society, high ACT score. Went to a state school with intentions to go to medical school, had a breakdown my junior year from stress and fear I'd never be good enough for medical school, changed my major to respiratory therapy, and have been working in that field ever since. I'm good at my job and enjoy it, and it pays well enough, so even though I didn't become a doctor, I think I'm doing all right all things considered.

One married an evangelist and moved to Montenegro. One moved to Oregon to do his PhD and been living there ever since. One became a doctor. Good jobs but not crazy impressive. The most impressive are the combination of upper-middle class and above average brain. They founded big startups and expanded their family owned companies. The rich ones are slackers. Still rich but didn’t seem to have grown much.

Dude became a d**g a****t, went to jail, and now is selling peptides on tiktok. He just bought a Lamborghini. I guess he was smart enough to figure out what d***s are good lol.

Don’t have a clue. I spent twelve years trying to get away from those people… I’ve never looked back.

One is a Supreme Court justice. I married the other one and then I divorced him. He is a jerk.

The valedictorians are now:

- aspiring math teacher

- aspiring marine biologist

- mechanical engineer at lockheed martin

the salutatorian is a software engineer at apple.

Valedictorian - now a Veterinarian who works primarily on horses (I think). Probably a name for that, no idea. She was wicked smart. Lives in Texas (High school was on east coast)

Salutatorian - An internal med doctor. Also wicked smart. Somewhere in the midwest

I think the 3rd smartest is an attorney. 4th is some loser pro-life Christian outreach idiot.

I was no where near the top of the class, but I am a Director of Quality in a large manufacturing facility. So there's that.

Valedictorian in my high school class got hooked on op**tes. Last I heard, he got busted breaking into somebody's house.

The kid who got a perfect score on the ACT became a librarian. This might sound small, but homie got a city job at 22 and he has worked his way up and I think he's to a point where he doesn't have to deal with the general public very much. I think he's doing pretty good.

Valedictorian: Lawyer, small town firm, doing well but nothing crazy.
Actual smartest (in my opinion): Doctor, small town hospital, doing well but nothing crazy.

Went to Berkeley then MIT, our families have been good friends since I was in 5th grade. He’s trying to become an astronaut and I’d like to reach out again and go visit.

My sister was one and she is now married and working at a daycare at the military base her husband is stationed at. She wanted to go to school to be a doctor when she was in high school then an english teacher and then kept changing her major until she ended up with a degree in early childhood education. She said it was a lot harder to keep up with the studies in college than in high school because of all the freedom she had.

Now I was actually valedictorian and I went to a private university in a different state for two years then both my parents almost died and I had a nasty incident with my old best friend and I just couldn’t take being there anymore. Transferred back home and now work with my father after getting my mechanical engineering degree. I want to be a professor but that’s most likely far into the future for me.