What did it mean to be popular at your school?

[Tianatiers]

In my school you had to smoke, drink, have older boyfriends, not give a shit about school work and have a generally 'hard' demeanor that made everyone afraid of you.

I was saying this to DH and he said that in his school the clever, confident, good looking ones were popular.

Interested to know what the popular crowd were like in other schools and whether I just lived in a particularly rough area!

There were a couple of different groups of "popular" girls (girls school) but it was generally the high academic achievers, also sporty, loud and chatty with the teachers.

Mine was the same as yours op, had to be hard, naughty, smoke, drink and be pretty....

I went to an all girl grammar and generally there were two types of popular groups...

The one you describe...smoking, drinking, not giving a shit group.

Then the pretty, sporty, high achiever group.

These two groups had some crossover and generally all hung out as we reached sixth form.

Although there was bitching (an all girl's school, how could there not be) it wasn't really a nasty 'mean girls' school and people were generally nice to each other no matter whether 'popular' or not.

@Doggotired

Mine was the same as yours op, had to be hard, naughty, smoke, drink and be pretty....

^ this

There were 2 different groups in my year. A group of snobs, acting rich and mature, and too good to talk to a lot of people. although the head of this group in my year actually was rich but she was much more subtle with it and actually really nice.

The other group was loud, a bit chavvy, I guess youd say promiscuous

Like yours, op. They were the kids who were hard as nails, were allowed to do as they pleased and got into as much shit as they could find. As an adult looking back, it's clear they were the neglected kids.

There were the hard girls as you describe op.
And the pretty, clever girls and that dressed well and came from well off families and applied to Oxbridge and russel groups unis.

Same as yours OP. All those girls reached their prime late teens/early 20's though....they're not so great now.

Same as yours OP, the popular kids were basically the kids that everyone else was scared of.

Pretty, sporty girls hanging out drinking in public drinking.

Being clever and confident just made you a "geek" at my school.

You had to be a good all rounder. So sporty, bright, musical, into drama, horses & dance

You also had to be good looking with flicky hair, and the ability to get away with murder

Clever kids kept their heads down at my school and hung on till college.

It wasn't a thing at my school People were just in different groups of friends and interests.

Popular girls at my school mostly lived on the town's posh estate and were pretty, reasonably academic and sporty. Not too academic though - you couldn't be seen to be trying too hard although I suspect students were revising like mad in secret at home as a fair few got into Oxbridge, Durham, Reading and the like. The popular boys were basically the football team although a few geeky, ugly but funny boys were also well thought of.

You were mocked if you were a "swot" or a "square".

You punched your way to the top in my school. Bizarrely just the girls though. I couldn’t point to the popular boys. My DH said attractiveness only really.

You got straight As in everything and were on every sports team.

Looking back you had to be a bit of a bully and therefore have control over the people vying to be in your circle.

Pretty, loud, confident, wear make up, drink. Smoking was something the popular crowd didn't do when I was at school though, I wasn't part of that crowd but me and my group of friends all smoked and they hated us for it. Called us names such as junkies . By the time we were all 18+ most of these girls would try to talk to me in the smoking area of the pub

Top tier: clever, confident, rich family, pretty
Next tier: confident, pretty
Next again tier: pretty
Next again tier: clever, not pretty.

The hard kids ruled at my school although within the ‘geeks’ and the ‘hippies’ there was a hierarchy too.

Mine was the hard as nails types. Generally haven't done well in life.

Dh went to a grammar school and his popular group was bright and sporty. Needed to be both. The popular kids from his school are all very successful in life and now we are in our 40s, the types to be mentioned in the FT / being on the TV as the spokesperson for organisations/businesses.

On reflection, the culture of his school did seem to encourage better life choices in order to be popular. But as neither of us were popular in our schools, it does mean when I did a Facebook sneak peak of the popular kids, it made me feel good about myself, but when dh did the same, made him feel a bit down!

I went to a girls grammar school yonks ago. The popular girls were the 'naughty' ones who smoked and had sexual relationships. At my DD mixed school the 'pops' were the pretty , sporty (bitchy) ones. These girls all seemed to have the exact same hairstyle and wear identical clothes on mufti day.

I think my school was too big to have one 'popular' group - there were 11 forms per year. I definitely didn't know everyone in my year.

In sixth form it was the posh-clever-pretty lot that were popular.

Popular kids in our school were smoking, drinking, shoplifting and shagging.
The lads were frequently removed from lessons and allowed to go working with the care taker around the site.
Clever kids were not respected at all and regarded as swots.
I can't ever remember there being any fuss about sporty kids. I was on the outskirts of the popular group, clever enough to have lots of fun but without getting into too much trouble or breaking the law (apart from the under age boozing on a Friday night)