538 Quotes About Nonfiction

Outstanding students of color arrived on campus without the web of white middle-class family and school structures that provided Anglo students with practical knowledge in such areas as college choice strategies and career planning.

For minority students, as for women and working-class white valedictorians, superior college grades did not lead smoothly to high-level satisfying work.

Just as the stereotypes of the one-sided academic grind or the obsessed genius are myths for high school valedictorians, also false is the conception of academic achievers as troubled individuals effective only in school.

As a group, valedictorians have always led well-rounded, socially integrated, ‘normal’ lives.

Female valedictorians marry a little later and participate somewhat more heavily in paid work than women in their age group nationally.

In their early thirties, the most career-invested women and men in the Illinois Valedictorian Project are those who have found deep personal meaning in vocations. Those qualities and conditions that keep students centered on work are different than those that made them high school valedictorian.

To reach the head of the class, students needed to conform to the school system and work equally hard at all subjects.

Valedictorians were highly motivated to excel academically because of early family and school experiences.

For all students, a network of career exploration opportunities, sponsors, and mentors is a critical accompaniment to coursework.