If you were ever bummed out that someone beat you to the top of your high school's graduating class, allow us to offer up a little refreshing, research-backed schadenfreude.

A study of more than 80 valedictorians and salutatorians (that's second-place finishers, guys) reveals that making straight A's means you're almost destined for middle management, says Karen Arnold, author of Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians. "More than 90 percent of them ended up holding nicely paid positions in professional fields."


So that's 90 percent.
What's the percentage of them that go on to become heads of state, millionaires, and inventors of society-shifting technology? What's the percentage of them that go on to "change," "run," or "impress" the world?

Zero.

In fact, a survey of more than 700 American millionaires showed that the average GPA among this ruling class was 2.9.

- Ari Nottis in BestLife

We don't have that system here really.
You get a mark between 1-10, 10 of course being the highest & best. 5 or lower is insufficient. If you have a certain amount of insufficient marks -and for certain subjects that are deemed important- you can not go to the next year's class.

What you got in the end as marks for your exams when finishing schools is something no one cares about. The only thing that matters is you got the diploma.
So if you got that with all 6s and the occasional 5 or all 8s and 9s no one will ever know nor give a chit. You passed the test and that's what's counts.

It might be different for uni, don't know.

As for successful people and millionaires not being among those high rating students doesn't surprise me. How you scored when at school doesn't say so much about your intelligence levels. Up to a point it does, but not really.

When I was still teaching I found the higher levels quite boring to be honest. No play, no fun, they entered the classroom, opened their books and did their work. Boring as hell.
The level below that, in between medium and that highest level, was my cup of tea! They had both the drive to study and get somewhere in life AND the playful part and fun. I myself function at that level too. It's quite a niche group. Most are medium or lower.
But those higher ones being so serious, that's not necessarily the approach that will get you success.
I think success is a combination of the right balance between head and heart.

Success is relative to the observer.
Many millionaires (billionaires) may have wealth and power but their personal lives (that which makes them content) is turmoil.

Out of a 4.0 maximum I graduated high school at a 3.8 and college with a 3.6 average (I was a partier).
I had the potential to be 'rich' yet opted for 'comfortable' instead.
Perhaps I was lazy or maybe, just maybe, I was not interested in focusing on great wealth.

I remember someone once told me
"It takes greater smarts to be poor than to be rich."
There's truth in that.
People with little money have to be smart enough to survive where someone wealthy just buys or hires what they need in life.
Poor people are more resourceful and can respond to life's challenges without help.
Many wealthy people can't even cook their own meals and couldn't effectively gather food if a disaster strikes.
You can eat gold but its not very nutritious.

It seemed to me that succeeding in school only requires a lot of rote memorization of processes and procedures. Excellent preparation for "middle management", which only requires following rules, regulations, "S.O.P.s", learning jargon, etc., and very little creativity or "out of the box" thinking, something enterprising hopeful millionaires, and inventors of society-shifting technology would need to become truly successful.

I graduated top of my class and very proud of all my academic achievements .

A life well lived is a personal journey . Education and professional development is important to me .

Most people who succeed in school don't know why they're doing it until they hit college and usually become disappointed that they wasted their time - they just do everything their parents told them. Even further, usually questions on school tests only refer to things in-context making the information practically useless. Basically, it trains you to have set answers that aren't applicable to the real world. It's based on an outdated teaching concept that kids need to learn steps before they can adopt a concept, which is wrong in many subjects, particularly Mathematics and English.

It doesn't help that in America, the basis of what it takes to get a High School degree has plummeted so much that most businesses that use to only need a High School degree are now requiring an Associate's minimum.