Popularity or High Grades?

[Infected Mushroom]

Please consider the following hypothetical:

You are a high schooler at a terrible public school and there are lots of very mean kids and apathetic teachers and administrators.

You must choose between two extremes.

Option 1:
You are a very popular student at the school and you have a natural talent at sustaining that status quo. Everyone wants to be your friend and your prospects for dates and prom would be strong. However, all of your grades and test scores will be Cs and Ds and your SATs etc will be bombed. They cannot be improved except in a marginal sense; academically you’re just not a relevant force.

Option 2:
You are a straight A student and it takes you very little effort. SATs and tests are all walks in the park, and you love learning. However, you are destined to be unpopular and hard bullied and many people think you are homely looking.

In both scenarios, your parents are either non existent in your life more or less or outright abusive. When you leave high school, the same bonus stats stay with you while the downsides go away (but you’ll have to work very hard to change your personality, habits and strengths). Under Option 2, the school’s idiotic policy is to keep you at the level you are at.

Under both scenarios, your parents keep you at the school no matter what.

You can’t have it all, not while you’re in school anyways. What do you choose?

I would choose Option 2 because the idea of effortlessly getting high grades sounds more like a superpower than being able to schmooze. I’m making a bit of an emotional decision here and not factoring in all that much what’s more likely to “win” in the real world after school. I just want to be cool; and I don’t think you need to be popular to be exceptional.

[Sundiata]

High grades.

[Dowaesk]

I'd choose option 2 as well. With a gift like that, I'd be swimming in a pool of success (i couldnt think of a better metaphor). <but after surviving high school that is.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

well if I get high grades I can go off and drown out my past life in money, so option 2

[Mtwara]

I feel like I should rewatch Death of A Salesman before I answer this one

[Hippolysta]

I would take guaranteed long-term social success over academic success in high school, especially if it's accompanied by bullying and no love at home which is going to make fixing it later on much harder than fixing C or D-level academic performance.

[-Goguryeo]

High grades. Might have to cope with insecurity and lowkey depression, but as a result of enduring a non-existent social life, I could become very selfishly driven for success in adulthood. Maybe, just maybe, I could meet the love of my life in the form of the co-worker who truly cares about my well-being. Cheesy but it'd make for an interesting scenario in my opinion.

[Basilid-Lombardo Order]

High school would be hard without popularity, but the rest of life will be hard without good grades, so I’ll take that.

[Marionsburgh]

High grades lead to popularity here, so High Grades

[The BlAAtschApen]

Okay who gave IM access to my teenage diary?

Option 2 +

[Infected Mushroom]

Okay who gave IM access to my teenage diary?

Option 2 +

I used a Bardic Inspiration die roll.

[SD_Film Artists]

As Bill Gates said- "be nice to the nerds in class as the chances are they'll be your future boss."

[Silver Commonwealth]

This one is a no-brainer for me, I would definitely pick grades over popularity.

[Life empire]

from a logic perspective a student is better of with good grades then popularity as popularity doesnt matter really and is just a waste of time while good grades might improve your life even into adulthood when you might get a better job because of this its so blindingly obviuos that someone picking option 1 is probably still improving there grades because they must be to dumb to pass and would have gotten Fs otherwise clearly option 2 is far far far better by far good grades are better

[Resilient Acceleration]

I mean, obviously good grades all the way, as seems to be the uniform opinion here. Besides, you shouldn't let school life eat your life; information age means that geographic distance is becoming increasingly irrelevant in terms of finding communities and shared interests. You also gained additional smug benefits to enrich your official background narrative if you ever become successful, leaving the pathetic failure that is your childhood environment and its bad actors as carpets to either be stepped at without any resistance capacity or discarded as objectively irrelevant to your attention.

[Infected Mushroom]

As Bill Gates said- "be nice to the nerds in class as the chances are they'll be your future boss."

Will they though?

All the stereotypically exceptionally good students (limited social life) people from my class are now teachers, educators, and academics. Not doing bad but not people’s first idea of powerful and successful.

Meanwhile the basketball playing classroom contrarian, some third rate student (who schmoozed a lot), and the class’ poster kid for being able to mobilize people (the kid single-handedly brought down my attempt to run for school president through bad mouthing alone) are manager bankers at elite firms and landing cushy jobs in actuarial science etc

[Chan Island]

Honestly? I'd pick option 1.

Good grades are great, but this is such a negative environment that you'll be battling depression for the rest of your life if you are anything other than fabulously successful in later life. The fact that you're achieving this with no effort is a sign that university is going to hit you like a truck.

Besides, I'm genuinely curious what it would be like being popular.

[FNU]

High Grades, because then at least I can be successful and unhappy at the same time.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

Option 1, I'm already terrible academically.

[Kannap]

Considering I already have lived option 2, might as well stick with that.

[Goraria]

Option 2: Like they always say “To succeed in life you must be very good at the maths”

[Chan Island]

You know, the fact that most people are choosing option 2 is telling. NSG is heavily skewed introverted, young and intelligent; meaning that in other words option is already a description of their lives.

But, I'm practice, it is often more about who you know and not what you know. Option 1 sets you up with the social skills to really excel. Schmoozing is an extremely important skill in the world of work, whether we like to admit that or not.

It is especially notable that option 2 actually has a hidden curse. This character is achieving these grades with no effort. Between the bullying, the bad parents and the terrible environment, we are looking at someone who will be unable to actually pull themselves up by the bootstrap. They will struggle in university and has a good chance of burning out.
Meanwhile, I gather its actually quite hard work to maintain many meaningful social relationships. This character is likely to have the mindset to succeed ub life, even with the bad grades.

[The Holy Therns]

I just want to be a decent accordion player.

[The BlAAtschApen]

You know, the fact that most people are choosing option 2 is telling. NSG is heavily skewed introverted, young and intelligent; meaning that in other words option is already a description of their lives.

But, I'm practice, it is often more about who you know and not what you know. Option 1 sets you up with the social skills to really excel. Schmoozing is an extremely important skill in the world of work, whether we like to admit that or not.

It is especially notable that option 2 actually has a hidden curse. This character is achieving these grades with no effort. Between the bullying, the bad parents and the terrible environment, we are looking at someone who will be unable to actually pull themselves up by the bootstrap. They will struggle in university and has a good chance of burning out.
Meanwhile, I gather its actually quite hard work to maintain many meaningful social relationships. This character is likely to have the mindset to succeed ub life, even with the bad grades.

I thought IM had my diary, but apparently, you have it as well.

I mean, the hidden curse definitely applies to me.

But I've worked on maintaining meaningful social relationships nowadays

[Valentine Z]

Popularity is temporary. Grades are eternal.

Although... you can sway a few folks if you say that popularity will carry over to work life.