My son was Valedictorian in his high school at a time when the school and society recognized such things as an accomplishment.
He told me two things going into his senior year.
First, his goal was to become valedictorian.
Second, he said the only thing that proved was that he was a good student, not that he accomplished anything in life.
Here's what's weird.
The salutatorian was a close friend of his. The salutatorian and my son share the same birthday. The salutatorian and my son were born in the same hospital on the same day. In high school they were on the same high school bowl team. They won first place in their conference one of their years in high school.
P.S. My son is so conservative he makes me look like Joseph Stalin. He is in year 14 of a Navy career and has just been promoted to Commander. He isn't totally comfortable with military politics and may retire in 20 because of that.
We put kiddo into a little 2 half day/wk church preschool. All but one of those kids graduated with honors. Don’t know if it was proactive parents or the little preschool or what but throughout my years of teaching, I could identify kids coming out of there. All top students.