" To be number one is to be publicly labeled a winner in the system that counts – a system of advancement through personal merit and effort in rugged competition. Labels of success – Rhodes scholar, Nobel laureate, Heisman Trophy winner – follow a person through life and define him or her to the public. One such label, valedictorian, marks academic winners. Schools in the United States have at least one common belief: high academic achievement is a good thing. "

― , Lives of Promise: What Becomes of High School Valedictorians: A Fourteen-year Study of Achievement and Life Choices (Jossey Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series)