What Taylor Swift's Experience In High School Was Really Like
Before Taylor Swift was selling out stadiums, topping Forbes lists, and getting honored with a doctorate degree, she was just another high schooler trying to figure out what her locker combination was. Granted, her stint in secondary education wasn't exactly typical, but just like you did, Swift roamed the halls of a public high school once upon a time.
Unlike most people, Swift's traditional high school era got cut short as she swapped the classroom for the stage in the latter years. After all, it's difficult to tour the globe while simultaneously trying to make sense of the quadratic formula. "I was in high school freshman and sophomore year, and then I went on the road. I homeschooled the rest of the way," she shared with Elle in 2009. "My brother's always calling me the dropout of the family." As for graduation? She received her diploma via snail mail — along with every other piece of fan mail, probably. "Education has always been at the forefront of my priorities, so I'm really glad to have my diploma," she told the Associated Press when she finally bid high school goodbye (via Today). "I never expected that my senior year would go the way it has. There's something really exciting about getting to live your dream and continue your education at the same time."
While Swift's time in high school was, err, swift, she didn't skip out on teen drama. From watching football games from the bleachers (because where else would she be?) to dealing with mean girls, she had her fair share of all-too-familiar adolescent experiences.
Taylor was a straight-A student
Leave it to Taylor Swift to not only chase the stars but also to ace her grades while she was at it. Even though she pursued a music career at a young age, she never let her education fall by the wayside. She was the epitome of a stellar student, maintaining a 4.0 GPA and somehow compressing her junior and senior high school years into one. She was also not one to rebel, making sure that she was every bit the goody two shoes. "I have no interest in drinking. I always want to be responsible for the things I say and do," she shared with Rolling Stone in 2009. She even ruminated about going to university, but went on to become a pop star instead.
Burying her head in books wasn't the only thing Swift preoccupied herself with, of course. On her old MySpace blog, she reminisced about all the things she loved about being a student. "... I'm so glad to have had two years of going to school ... going to football games and participating in gym class even though I have no coordination," she penned, adding that for prom, she had to don a $40 dress, accompanied by a last-minute date.
But would she swap her chart-topping life for a chance to redo those high school days? Well, not quite. Speaking with The Los Angeles Times in 2008, she said, "So when I start to get really physically worn down, I just mentally go back to the place when I would have to get up really early for a test in high school, and I'm like, 'Hey, this is pretty cool.'"
She opened up about being bullied
In her brief time in high school, Taylor Swift's experience wasn't all that pleasant, either. While she wasn't exactly the class pariah, she wasn't the queen bee everyone thought she was. "The kids at school thought it was weird that I liked country — they'd make fun of me," she confessed to Teen Vogue in 2009. "Junior high was actually sort of hard, because I got dumped by this group of popular girls. They didn't think I was cool or pretty enough, so they stopped talking to me."
Swift also opened up in a livestream about the bond she shared with her best friend, Abigail Anderson, and how their unique interests made them targets for ridicule. "We talked about 'Napoleon 'Dynamite,' and you know, the other girls are putting on their lip gloss, and they're like, 'They're so weird,'" she recalled, but also noted that at the end of the day, it didn't matter because it made her "appreciate" her tiny circle.
And in true Taylor Swift fashion, she used those experiences with former classmates as material for her hit tracks. As it turns out, it's not just her old high school crushes that she used as fuel to pen lyrics. "And really, if I hadn't come home from school miserable every day, maybe I wouldn't have been so motivated to write songs," she dished to Teen Vogue. "I should probably thank them!"