Redditors have recently been discussing where their most promising classmates ended up, so we’ve gathered the juiciest replies below. From changing the world with scientific discoveries to dropping out of college and abandoning academics altogether, enjoy reading through these surprising stories. And be sure to upvote the ones that stand out to you! The smartest kid in my class was also very disciplined and emotionally stable. I lost track of him in the last 20 years, but a quick Google search says he graduated from Stanford and started a biotech company. Image credits: Seemose There were 2 geniuses in my class. One became a neurosurgeon, the other opened a candle store. Image credits: discostud1515 She’s winning awards for her work mapping the human genome. No surprise. Image credits: pickanotherusername He got bored of school, joined the navy, and never grew out of his love for trains. Image credits: sortaseabeethrowaway He became the surgeon general of the US. Image credits: every1pees The same thing happened to the two smartest kids in my class, a guy and a girl. They both got accepted into Ivy League schools and then had to dropout after they developed serious mental health issues. I imagine the high stress environment must have flipped a switch in their brains to make them go off the deep end. Image credits: Moal The smartest I never heard from again but the last time I saw him he learned fluent Chinese as his third language. The second became a hard left activist. The third smartest became a dentist. Image credits: anon She was constantly stressed out by her family pressuring her to get a 4.0 GPA and get a full ride to a good school and then immediately did nothing with it because then she was pushed to marry some guy who was a total washout but got a job through his dad. Image credits: Lord0fHats He went to a top university and struggled like f**k because everyone was clever and he realised he wasn’t the special unique snowflake that his mum told him he was. Image credits: RobotGoatBoy I'll break the mold here from the burnt out gifted kid sterotype. Image credits: WanderingTacoShop They studied Maths and Psycology, wrote the master thesis about Maths in English (not our mother tongue) and now works at a uni renowned for their Maths department. Image credits: anon Hopefully he got his lights punched out at some point. He was always was pulling, "Oh, you got 82 on your test? I only got 98. I suck." humble brag horses**t. Image credits: ClownshoesMcGuinty Texas public school. He went to Yale and got a degree in economics. Works in DC now for a state rep. Getting into an MIT asynchronous then in person graduate program. Image credits: unsmartkid Before he passed away he was a computer programer with a sideline brewery business. Image credits: finallygrownup He moved to the states to play soccer and ended up going to Penn State. He is a software developer and is doing quite well. Image credits: mr_kenobi My brother had a friend in elementary school who turned out to be a super genius and skipped a few grades. That kid graduated in my highschool class at 13 years old. Image credits: Sea_Risk_2637 He went to university studying math. After a while he decided that the teachers didn't know math like he did. They did not respect and love it. He got furious and quit. He got some good jobs in investment banking, quit them because they did not respect the math. Image credits: DrMcDingus He moved to Europe and became a professional dancer, at least that's what he posts on Instagram. Looks like he's enjoying himself so I can't really judge, but he always struck me as someone more inclined to STEM or politics than anything artistic like that since he took AP Physics and loved it, was a big part of the student government, and was either a really important member or the captain of the debate team. Image credits: vivivivivistan The smartest lad got addicted to d***s and overdosed (his parents we're apparently really over bearing) and the smartest girl became an onlyfans model and also an escort. Image credits: anon He got a PhD from Stanford in quantum mechanics and is now a professor. Image credits: tomtomtomo Full scholarship to Harvard, track and field star, opera singer, fashion model, actually funny improv comedian, and now she’s an environmental lawyer or something. Also has a husband and kids now. I don’t know how a real person can achieve all this and I can’t help but feel like my life is inadequate. Image credits: elizabethcrossing He went on to become an eye surgeon. He married the most beautiful woman in San Francisco and they had three amazing boys. Image credits: Book8 The smartest kid in my class denied a full ride to Harvard to become a priest only to die 1 day after becoming a priest (got hit by a car). Image credits: DRealLeal She became a HS teacher in the next town over, which is even smaller. Has a family and all that but it felt like she could have somehow done "more". I don't even know what "more" means. Afaik she has a happy life. But we always thought she would cure cancer or something. Image credits: chazberlin She opened her own cafe in a neighboring town and employs people with disabilities. She graduated as valedictorian in high school and later, top 10% at Yale. Image credits: diveintomysoul He met smarter kids and got depressed. Image credits: anon Lord knows what she’s doing but her high school sweetheart now husband came into my club for his stag do and I found out he is comedically stupid. Not a lick of common sense. . Image credits: exorcius He k**led himself while home on a break from university. Image credits: luciferslittlelady I was the smartest kid in my class. I did ok academically in the end, I have a bachelor’s and two postgraduate degrees. Image credits: anon He is currently a doctor, and a Captain in the US Navy. Image credits: ForeverIdiosyncratic Left the country after Bush Jr. was elected and became a Professor in some type of advanced Mathematics in Brazil. Was one of my best friends growing up, I hope he’s having the time of his life. Went to top university in India, got addicted to d***s, came out of it, got married, living a normal life with family. There were two of us. He interviewed at Oxford and Cambridge, got offers from both, then left and didn't go to either as he was done with school. Our head of year lost it as he was depending on him to boost his profile. He got into med school, hated it and then dropped out. Then he became a Drag Queen for a short time. Then he joined some kind of non-profit organization for troubled youth. Then he moved to Paris with his husband and got into modeling. Now he works for OECD in France. He became a top executive at Lehman Brothers. When the company collapsed in 2008 he walked away with over $100 million. There was this Indian kid in my level 1 media class at college, he was also the quiet kid, however, the guy honestly was a genius. His 3D models were peak compared to anyone else’s, and also did well on the other units such as sound production and music videos. What happened to him? Well, he skipped level 2 media and went straight to level 3, while the rest of us went to level 2 media. If I wasn't *the* I was *among the*, now I'm stuck on my degree, my ADHD symptoms just exploded from "almost didn't think I had anything" to "last exam I took was 2 years ago and in no way it feels like I'm taking one soon". I'll finish 2 years late out of 5 in the very very very best case scenario, because of a f****d up combination of "nah, from now on you can't put the slightest effort in anything that leaves you even a bit bored" from my useless brain, "you see, you need to memorise stuff, not understand it" from my country education and the lack of mental health discourse plus d******k idiot useless failed parents who over the years made me think mental health was somewhat stupid so I delayed seeing a psychiatrist or at the very least a psychologist for at least a couple years too much. Snapped under the pressure (she was Korean). Ended up graduating late :-) Well he was from a poor family, so he didn't have a good start. He did eventually go to a trade school for electronics, and after several really bad unrelated jobs now works as the chief telecommunications engineer for one of the largest counties in the U.S. High up in tikl tok after previously working for you tube. Done alright I'd say. He dropped out of a prestigious, very expensive college junior year because he didn’t understand why he was going into debt for a piece of paper. He joined the navy. Had the government pay him to go get his undergrad and masters. There were lots of sucky years on a submarine, too, but now he’s pretty high up in rank working in the pentagon. Smartest guy I’ve ever met and is beyond hard working. Working in a cubical, complaining about how life isn’t fair, and everyone is out to keep them down. Two of the smartest people in my classes....they always got those high 90s and 100s in almost every class. In his 3rd year of his med degree. He did a test for like mental health things and scored basically a 0 for every single mental health. He's also one of the nicest people I know. Dude really won the life lottery. He dropped university and went to work for a company writing hardware drivers. Then ended up working on Linux kernel development for a very big name in the field, with offers from companies that everyone in the world would recognise. It was often me, so I'll tell ya My class's smartest died of d**g related issues. I don't think she had ever been allowed to be 'normal' by her family so when she got taste of freedom she didn't know how to control it apparently. I work at a pet store, highest GPA voted most likely to succeed, almost skipped grades but I was extremely socially inept and parents thought that would only make it worse. IQ tested at 164, was tested for eidetic memory (don’t have one just insanely good recall). Went to college for Physics and Mathematics. Junior year I had a series of psychotic episodes and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Dropped out of college, found that animals help with my anxiety and depression, keep me a bit more leveled overall so I stuck with it. It would be pretty cool to have my own store but economy is s**t so ya know just kinda cruising. My class had a lot of smart kids, so I don't know what happened to the smartest, or even exactly which kid that was. I don't know exactly what happened to most of them other than they went to study sciences and maths, but one of them went on to only study a creative subject, nothing academic, and is happier than she ever was studying academic subjects, despite how good she was at them and how she was often encouraged to study sciences or maths because of her grades. I lost track of him for a while. Call him John. John was the kind of guy that aced all the hardest classes without ever studying. Got a full ride to Stanford and was going to double major in Computer Science and Cognitive Science. His dream (at the time) was to revolutionize AI. He built a Chess AI from scratch that none of us could beat (admittedly, that's not saying saying much). This was almost 20 years ago, way before the AI trend of today. A mathematical wizard working with Smithsonian on AI and ML, working on a project to decipher some obscure language, which was found 5000 years ago. Nice bloke, still drives around on an old C180, drinks Balvenie, wears a IWC, watch cricket and just another regular bloke. He’s literally my primary care physician. He got convicted of fraud in November 2023 for misusing customer funds from his crypto exchange. Depends. If you're talking about the top of the class, then I'm doing good, currently enrolled in my country's defacto engineering university, hoping to become an Engineer in Energy and Environment, currently in my 4th year. It's kicking my a*s, but I'll manage. I was sure he would become a scientist however he got into music and toured with The Who as a musician and sound guy for the past 20 years. He became an attorney, a well known member of the local LGBTQ community, and was my very best friend for 28 years. He died in a horrible car accident two years ago. His legacy lives on in part by an LGBTQ scholarship for the law school he attended. I was the smartest kid in my class, I’m depressed, got no purpose and my parents aren’t proud of me Became a doctor. Died by s*****e after losing his medical license for illegally selling prescription meds online. Too bad. Super nice guy. We were homeschooled but my brother was the smart one. Perfect ACT score, full ride scholarship to his dream school. A few months later we find out he’s been skipping class to hang out with some…non-quality people. Fast forward 15 years, he’s homeless and addicted to hard d***s. When I was a kid I was super jealous if this kid in my class who was popular, got straight A’s, his parents had money, and best of all he was very friendly and nice. She got F-up sue to anxiety and pressure from her parents. I guess being the best student in highland mean nothing layer in life. I'm a medical doctor (emergency medicine specialist) working on 2 public hospitals, currently struggling with depression. Flunked out of college because her “teachers didn’t know how to teach” nothing was ever her fault, it was always the incompetence of others. I just looked him up. He came out as gay (this is a big deal because we grew up in a small, religious town), and is now living in New York, working at a tech company. Not sure but almost certainly he’s highly successful somewhere. He got a 1590 on the SAT (out of 1600) and knew which question he had missed. He went to Cambridge University, got a First class honours degree then got a job with one of the big 4 accounting firms. After a few years, the job was too stressful so he then got a job with a smaller company. He's been there for over a decade, few promotion prospects but has a much better work life balance and is happier. He's been wise with his money so has a house in one of the nicer areas of our city and is a good husband and dad now. Quiet life but he seems quite happy. Oh, I'm a depressed doctor. Thanks for asking. There were two "smartest kids" in my class. One is a high school dropout working for McDonald's who gave up on doing anything... The other one is struggling mentally to get anything done including finishing a 5 months Master's thesis in what looks like is gonna be 14 months now... Writing down those numbers, makes me feel more s****y... Because that last one is me. At least I have hope for the future. He went to Wharton, worked at Goldman Sachs and then became a writer not long after that. I was the smart kid. #1
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They were such cool people, I was really rooting for them. :(.
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That family was s**t and I kind of stopped checking in when I moved away from the area. No idea what came of her in the end. She was very smart, but I don't think I ever saw her happy.
EDIT: Sad to say there were also a lot of cruel jokes about her among the class cause she was so busy with church stuff and studying she never had time for friends and never seemed to know what to do with other people. Poor girl was basically a spectator sport in high school. Not very proud of that now.
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The guy was one of the most arrogant twats I’ve met so I feel karma worked its magic here.
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He got a PhD from a very prestigious university, worked for Google on one of their flagship products, married a Medical Doctor, quit Google and semi-retired. He's mostly a stay at home dad now and does some occasional consulting work part time.
What, I'm not jealous... you're jealous. Seriously though the guy deserved every bit of what he has.
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He is/was my best friend.
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4 years later and he's already got a Masters, co-wrote some papers, and is leading a nano-tech project at a VERY reputable university.
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Last I heard he was some sort of janitor at a research facility. Apparently very well liked since he can solve any ones math problems. Guess they respect it enough.
I think he is on the spectrum...
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Maybe he always wanted to pursue the arts though, if that's the case then I'm happy for him. He looks like he's living a fun life.
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Wild ride I guess.
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Interesting point about him though was he started in the 5th of 5 classes and worked his way up each year until he became top in the top class in our final year. .
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All of the top 10 smart kids stayed in our hometown and are making less than 50k a year or are d***gies.
The bottom 10 of my class are all successful, making over 100k yearly.
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Professionally, I did absolutely terrible for many years until I started my business recently. Things are looking up professionally.
I also have a wonderful husband and children, so I consider myself in an amazing position, best I’ve ever been in in my life.
My childhood was s**t (a*****e parents, very poor, and socially inept weird kid with no friends) and so was most of my adulthood (still socially inept, lonely, no family support, partners in my life could easily take advantage and abuse me), so I feel like I deserve the happiness I have now.
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J had rich parents and went to an Ivy League school, got a law degree, spent some time working for the AG of Guam and while I have no idea what he's up to now, he's very successful.
I was poor. They took my Ritalin away, my grades dropped. I became depressed, got profiled because of my depression as a potential school shooter in the wake of Columbine, and eventually dropped out of school. I only finally went back to college because of the pandemic, where I'm working toward the goal of a doctorate in psychology.
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He's done pretty well by all accounts.
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I want my brain back, the real one, the old one. The one that can achieve great things.
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No idea now.
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But it is a government job that pays like c**p.
(It's me.).
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one has been a full time bartender now for 20 years in a small town. The other is physically disabled from being too idle since graduation and is unemployed. She did okay working for the government until she turned 25 and has been living off disability for well over 10 years.
The dumbest people in the classes ended up with the best long lasting careers. Myself I have a great career in IT. I was not the dumbest but not the smartest.
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Now he co-owns and operates a company that lays fibre optic lines in the more rural regions of our area, providing service to those that the big companies have ignored so far. I'm even working for him lately, updating the web site, doing a bit of data entry, etc.
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I got depressed, turned into a smoker/alcoholic, and dropped out of high school.
Then i worked s****y restaurant jobs, continued being a smoker/alcoholic, and did a bunch of d***s. I also got my GED.
Then i went to rehab
I moved out to the country and the only things that have changed are that i dont do d***s, weed started giving me panic attacks, and i dont have a job.
I never properly learned how to drive. I have zero social skills.
But i can cook fairly well and I'm planning on going to community college in the fall. I'll be 24 when that starts.
Essentially, life got to be too much even without responsibilities and i turned into a deadbeat do-nothing
The person who wasnt inherently smart but worked her a*s off to get good grades and learn things? Extremely successful comparatively and is now a newscaster on one of the big stations around here. I envy her. But she also grew up with a stable family and decent support and social skills, so.
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I don't think students should be encouraged to study academic subjects just because they're smart enough to, students should be encouraged to study whatever they love studying. If that's a science or academic subject, they should absolutely go for it. If they'd prefer something creative, they should be encouraged to rather than persuaded to follow a different path just because they could study something else that's more academic.
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Anyway, he dropped out after 1 semester and I heard a rumor that he was living off the land in Sequoia National Park. But about 8 years ago a mutual friend of ours bumped into him at the aquarium in Long Beach. He was actually working there. The mutual friend asked him what he did there -- thinking he was a research scientist or something. But he said he just has a menial job where his main task is feeding baby dolphins and cleaning their tanks. Basically an intern job. My buddy tried to dig a little to see what happened, like how he was so f*****g smart but just dropped out of life and we all thought he was going to be the next Bill Gates or something. But John said he thought his life served a youthful porpoise.
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If you're talking about the actual smartest kid in my class, he's doing even better. The only reason he wasn't top of the class was because he couldn't be bothered with classes like Literature and the sorts, he only cared about maths. To the point where even without studying he got great grades. So he moved to the US and is currently studying at MIT. He comes back from time to time and we hang out, he's a chill dude.
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I lost my social skills among other things but mainly my spark is gone.
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He was all the things a kid could possible hope to be. I ended up changing schools and didn’t see him again until my late 20’s when I encountered him inside a post office. He had gone bald but in a very unflattering way (let’s be honest, some of he simply don’t look good bald) and I kinda remember being surprised it was him.
Fast forward again to my mid-30’s. I had moved away for a few years at 30, and moved back at 35. I ended up going to a gas station in town and saw him outside sweeping up cigarette butts. I went to that gas station nearly every day and I became very familiar with him. He had changed drastically, but in the most noticeable way, he appeared to almost have a mental disorder or very severe autism or something. I have no clue what happened to him, but maybe he had a brain injury or something because he just didn’t seem….right.
A few years later, I read that he had drowned in the YMCA pool in my town. Apparently he went there a lot and had been kicked out multiple times for being “unsafe” whatever that means.
To this day, the transition from the kid I was in middle school with, to the man he grew up to be just shocks me.
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I remember she used to go on super expensive vacation, have super luxurious lifestyle for what was considered normal at the time.
She got all sorts of issues later in life, like domestic and substance abuse.
Really tragic to think someone so promising in life got derailed mostly due to pressure from her parents to be the superstar she used to be in highschool.
I'm the meantime, I was considered a bad influence and a "lost cause" - currently working my dream job, beautiful and loving family.
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Good for him. He has lots of photos at the summer pride parade. I'm not sure if or how accepting his parents are, but I hope he is as happy as he looks.
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Had no direction or guidance in life, but never needed to study or anything. Graduated with honors in mathematics from high school.
Went to college. I had a bad past dealing with my parents being violent alcoholics. Being in the college environment didn't do anything good for that. I started to really spiral. I didn't do well emotionally, and started failing classes. I also started treating people in my life awfully. Attempted s*****e twice. I finally quit school and got a few menial jobs- saved up 15k. I then moved to the middle of nowhere, and had my car, a radio, and little else. Spent 13 months isolated by choice. Didn't speak to anyone. Eventually ran out of money, and just started moving around.
At 22 I was diagnosed with a lot of different mental illnesses- but couldn't afford medication for years.
At 23 I met a woman that saved me. She held my hand through life until I was able function like a decent human being.
Now I'm 40- have a great family life and work a menial labor job. I am outside and it keeps me active.
The woman that saved me- we have been married for 15 years.
