Goffstown High School senior Matthew Stanton is on the road to potentially becoming the Class of 2023 Valedictorian. He claims that his academic career is his main focus, and while most people work hard on their academic careers, Matt is truly a unique student at Goffstown High School.

His earliest memory of focusing on school and academics dates back to 8th grade. Matt claims, “8th grade is the point where I started taking [school] seriously. Anything below [8th grade] I didn’t really take it seriously.” When he was in 8th grade, one of his teachers encouraged him to take AP World History his freshman year and that’s when he realized that he could actually become a really successful student.

Even though Matt has taken 14 AP classes at the school and a few more on VLACS, he says that the reason he takes so many classes is only because he’s interested in those classes. “What motivates me is pure interest,” says Matt, “I think if you don’t have interest in a class, you’re going to have a very hard time motivating yourself to do the school work.” He advises people to not take an honors or AP class if you’re not interested in the subject because you’re not going to be motivated to do the school work. Matt says he learned the most in AP Lang because he was taught how to be a better writer.

Matt’s biggest goal is to learn, rather than being valedictorian. To him, it is always about learning. “[Valedictorian] was never a goal,” says Matt, “I’m very proud of myself…and I’m happy to be there. I know the AP classes got me there, but I don’t take them to [become valedictorian], I take them to learn and I take them because I’m interested, so I don’t take anything to purposefully be valedictorian.” 

Something that might be surprising about Matt is that he only spends about 30 minutes on homework per night. “I don’t know what it is about AP classes, but homework is not that bad,” Matt expresses. He manages his time well so that he doesn’t spend so much time doing homework all the time. 

Since he doesn’t spend a lot of time doing homework, he says he doesn’t actually sacrifice much to be one of the top students of his class, “I still go out with friends and I still spend time with people, so to be at the top I don’t sacrifice that much.” Matt explains that, “The second you’re sacrificing your social life or you’re sacrificing anything else to do academics, that’s probably where you need to stop.” When Matt is not doing academics, he enjoys rock climbing and hiking.

Matt’s biggest piece of advice for underclassmen and other people who want to be at the top of their class is to challenge yourself as much as you can, but only to your limit. “While you have to take a lot of AP classes and really challenge yourself, the second you start going above your limit, you’re going to start not doing well. Also, treat school seriously…and enjoy high school.”