“Most Likely to Succeed” a Curse

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Best hair doesn’t come with the same amount of pressure. Neither does best personality. No, the worst thing, according to the Wall Street Journal, to be named in a high-school poll? Most likely to succeed. More than a third of the people who’ve had the prediction bestowed upon them in their teens say it’s become “a curse” later in their lives. It’s not that it doesn’t come true—in many cases it does. But recipients say it weighs heavy on their minds as they navigate the tricky waters between adolescence and adulthood. Explains a former recipient: “I have been constantly evaluating my success and using that silly award as a benchmark.”

Speaking of yearbooks, we made the photo above using this awesome website called Yearbook Yourself, which allows you to see what you’d look like as a graduate every decade since the 1960s. Awesome time waster.