If you want to get into a good college, it’s a good idea to do your best in high school.

Take hard classes, get good grades, join clubs – it’s a lot of pressure on teenagers!

In today’s story, one high school student is jealous of another student who bumped her out of the top ten in academics at her school.

She’s so jealous that she’s spreading rumors about the student.

Thankfully, the other student finds an easy way to prove who is really smarter.

Let’s see how it all works out.

I was in a “battle for high school ranking” for nearly 2 1/2 years without knowing it

I was very ill during eighth grade (in the US, so that’s the last year of grade school, before high school) and missed a few months completely.

I was only allowed to do half days for another month or so.

Even though I was doing homework, I wasn’t getting the in person instruction, and I’m more of a visual/auditory learner.

So needless to say my grades weren’t great and therefore placement in high school was at a remedial level my freshman year.

But they had figured out what was wrong with me and the medication had worked, so I had no attendance issues and had nearly a 4.0 GPA.

It’s not always easy to make new friends.

I was the only person from my grade school to go to this high school.

(The city line was literally our back fence.)

So I had to make friends with people who had gone to the same grade school their entire lives.

I finally made a few friends, most of them were in the marching band even though I wasn’t.

Unbeknownst to me, this was also when this “feud” started.

Another student was upset that she bumped her out of the top 10.

Another member of the band who was friends with some of my little circle was VERY invested in being in the top 10 of the class.

And suddenly she was at 11, because I was in the top 10.

(I don’t know why she had no issues with the other 9.)

I obviously knew I was in the top 10, (actually was salutatorian at the end, but ranked I think 4th because 3 people were valedictorians with perfect 4.0 GPAs) but had no idea this was bothering anyone except me.

Math was the hardest subject.

To get to the schools I wanted to apply to, I needed to be in the “good” classes, especially math.

I have always and will always hate math.

But sophomore year I had to take algebra AND geometry to get caught up.

I guarantee that year took several years off my life and I’m amazed I didn’t get gray hair, but I succeeded.

Crystal has been lying.

It wasn’t until junior year, when we were starting ACT prep classes, that one of my friends made an offhand comment to the effect of “If you do well on the ACTs then Crystal will have to stop saying you cheated your way to the top.”

Ummm, what now?

Literally the entire group I was sitting with, about 9 people, are just staring at me until someone finally said, “You know Crystal has been saying you took those easy classes freshman year to boost your GPA, right?”

“No, in fact I did not.”

There was more to it…

Everyone looked very uncomfortable.

I was still trying to make sense of … that, when someone helpfully chimed in.

“Yeah, she’s been talking all summer about how when she gets a better ACT score than you it will prove you shouldn’t be in the top 10.”

“Okay, so does she think she gets to take my spot if she gets a higher score?”

To this day I have no clue why this was so important to her.

Crystal did do well on the test.

But eventually the day came where we got our scores back.

And she was telling the whole school about her 31.

(Which is a very good score- she WAS extremely intelligent, which is why I was so baffled that this mattered to her.)

And I just said… nothing.

Because I knew she would ask me in front of everyone, and while I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, I had a bit of a petty streak.

She did even better on the test.

So during lunch, she stood up at the end of our lunch table and basically yelled, “Clara, did you hear I got a 31.”

“Sure did. Congratulations.”

She just stood there a minute, while I drank my soda.

Then finally, “Well I haven’t heard from anyone what you got. Don’t you want to share?”

“I don’t mind. I got a 32.”

I would’ve loved to have seen the expression on Crystal’s face!

It was like watching a balloon deflate.

It was certainly not my proudest moment, but at the same time- if you’re going to be in intense competition for something, you should maybe at least let your “opponent” know about it.

Crystal needed to worry more about her own grades instead of making excuses about why another student was doing better than her.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Crystal really did need to be put in her place.

This is a good point.

Here’s a similar story from basic training.

Another student was upset about the SAT.

Quit worrying about who does better and just focus on doing your best.

Competing with others never ends well.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.