By Nick Sestanovich

When Upraj Singh entered Benicia High School, he did not know he would be the top student in his class.

“Freshman and sophomore year, I didn’t even have a concept of what the valedictorian was,” he said. “It was only junior year I was seeing people striving for this position and basically striving for academic excellence, and I thought, I definitely could be part of them. So, junior year, I thought, I’m gonna strive for this position.”

Madeline Beyer figured she could rank near the top, but she had a lot of competition.

“I knew I was at the top for all four years and that I’ve always been a little bit ahead of everybody GPA-wise just because I was able to take a couple of AP classes early on,” she said, “but I never thought I’d make it to the top two. It was really competitive.”

Source: Benicia High School top 2018 graduates ready for next big step