How Far Taylor Swift Really Got In School

Taylor Swift may be known for her prolific command of the English language, but was higher education her path to success, or did she acquire her impressive vocabulary through other means? Well, it turns out that Swift, the quote-unquote "English teacher" who's about to marry Travis Kelce, didn't need college to help cement her status as an intellectual. "I never got to have the normal college experience, per se," Swift admitted, ironically, during her commencement speech at NYU in 2022, where she received an honorary doctorate. "I went to public high school until 10th grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals."

That school, of course, was none other than Hendersonville High School in Tennessee, where she and her family moved when she was a teen. If you've followed Swift for any length of her career, you already know the lore. Before Swift's transformation into the pop star we know today, she was a lanky teenager with dreams of becoming a performer. And while Swift's childhood was pretty normal compared with her life today, she's always been the same Taylor. In fact, one of Swift's former teachers, Lile Smith, spoke highly of her professionalism back in high school. "She was performing and the sound broke and we had no sound," he said (via WKRN). "She went and sat at the edge of the stage and picked her guitar and started playing and singing and wasn't bothered at all... That's how professional she was, she was very professional, even at that age."

If you're interested in what Taylor Swift was like in high school, then the first thing you probably want to know is how she fared academically. Unfortunately, there isn't much known about Taylor Swift's actual grades in high school, though one can imagine she was pretty bright. According to WKRN, Swift had a high GPA, and from the looks of a sample assignment about rainforests one of her teachers kept, she was also a skilled persuasive writer from a young age.

With that said, one of Swift's early education teachers remembered vividly and dished on what she was like to CBS Philadelphia way back in the day. "She always was writing poetry, always," shared Barbara Kolvek. "Even in music class, even when she shouldn't." She continued, "I did give her her very first singing solo 'Fast Talk Freddie,' I believe it was called." Ahh. Can't say that we're surprised!