The trepidation of the situation wasn’t helped by the incessant nagging of my family. Relentlessly I was bombarded by statements of how important becoming valedictorian was. Any hint of anything less than an absolute perfection was met with stringent vigilance and guilt trips. The significance of grades wasn’t only stamped into my brain; it was etched in stone. In my eyes, A’s were the only acceptable grade; B’s were considered inferior and the indication of a C was completely unacceptable. It felt as though a grading guillotine was permanently wrapped around …show more content…
That modicum of difference was what separated valedictorian from the salutatorian. In retrospect, the impact of being valedictorian has been so minimal in my life, it’s laughable. It didn’t help me in applying to college, it didn’t help me with financial aid, and it didn’t help me prepare for college. I was so fixated on making exemplary grades and becoming valedictorian that the line between my academic worth and my self-worth became blurred and amalgamated. I felt if I didn’t achieve absolute flawlessness, that I was a failure. I was so blinded by my self-effacing perfectionism that I lost what a grade truly