20 Unbelievable Transformations Ex-Classmates Witnessed At Their 10-Year High School Reunions

Did your high school teacher make you write a letter to “your future self” and jot down everything you hoped to accomplish in the next 5-10 years? Well, mine did, and I’m nearing my 5th high school reunion and can’t wait for the cringe and embarrassment of reading the note I wrote myself back then. I remember very well that I expected to be married by 25. Well, jokes on me.

#1

Image source: zapsharon, Dineshraj Goomany

I used to pass notes to a guy in Algebra class… mostly song lyrics. I’d write a line pass it to him, he’d write a line, back and forth. He was a quiet kid and friends with some other friends of mine who were big into BMX bikes and skateboards. I took a bunch of photos of these guys for my photography class. At graduation, he said he was heading to California to ride BMX. He never came to a reunion… he was too busy playing rhythm guitar in Guns N Roses as Izzy Stradlin.

#2

Image source: El_Raro, Engin Akyurt

Two [passed away], one became disabled after a car accident, a couple of them came out as gay, one became a super successful entrepreneur and HEAPS got really fat.

Meanwhile, I got a haircut.

#3

Image source: Brianthelion83, Pixabay

Twin sisters. The good one straight A student and a perfect angel is now 90 pounds soaking wet and just finished her 4th stint in rehab for drugs. The one who was a trouble maker and constantly in trouble even arrested a few times for drugs and shop lifting while in high school, is a doctor with a family.

#4

Image source: fluffywhiteduck, rayul

On the flip side I know someone who hasn’t aged since high school. No extra fat, no wobbles, no gray hair, nothing. Even his voice is the same at thirty as it was at fourteen. I’m pretty sure he’s a vampire.

#5

Image source: anonymous_potato, Philip Myrtorp

Skinny nerdy guy got busted for selling a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of adobe software in college and spent 15 months in prison. He came out super buff.

#6

Image source: Lo452, Kateryna Hliznitsova

My boyfriend went to his 10 year over the weekend. Saw this woman he didn’t know. Turned out to be one of his old football buddies… So, I’d say that was a very big transformation.

#7

Image source: senefen, Ron Lach

One girl I went to high school with is now a guy I went to high school with. It’s an all girls school.

#8

Image source: johnnyseattle, Leah Kelley

The most popular and best-looking girl (biggest b***h, really) in my class weighed about 220 and was pregnant with kid #5. From head cheerleader on her way to UW, to college dropout stay-at-home mom. I probably *could* have enjoyed seeing that more, but I’m not sure how off the top of my head.

#9

Image source: anon, Tyler Harris

This guy was poor. Nice kid, but really poor. Only owned 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants. People always donated clothes to school to give to family. Dirty, needed groomed, overall looked homeless. You know how most kids are, mean about it, but he was cool.

Millionaire. Has started and sold quite a few businesses and is overall very successful. Invests in lots of real estate now.

#10

Image source: anon, Ruthson Zimmerman

Not 10 but 5.

This kid that everyone made a scapegoat in high school is LOADED.
He was the kid that certain groups would pretend to be friends with and then do something horrible to him as a “joke” like depantsing him in front of the whole lunch room or teasing him about his small d**k till he cried (not sure if he actually had one or not just high school a**holes being a**holes)

Turns out that he won some sort of contest/scholarship thing for this space engineering idea and ended up going to school in California for free. I guess he worked super hard and was able to graduate a year early and now is just like rich as f**k working for some sort of space engineering thing that works closely with NASA.

It was funny listening to all the people who use to make fun of him just listen to his life story with their mouths hanging wide open. He has no debt, owns a beautiful home in California and another “cabin” home in our home state (MN), drives beautiful cars, hangs out with beautiful people. All at the ripe age of 24. You could practically smell the jealousy. Plus he brought his smoking hot gf.

It made me so happy for him :)

#11

Image source: r0botdevil, Yannic Läderach

Tough, bada** football player with shaved head, nicknamed “Iceman”. Came to the reunion a skinny, long-haired hippy/yogi and sporting one of the happiest smiles I’ve ever seen. I like to think he finally figured out who he really was.

#12

Image source: OneBlueberry, Laurenz Heymann

It’s only been 5 years since I graduated and one of the girls in my class is a freaking rocket engineer. Working for nasa.

Like what. She used to cry about that douchebag she was dating. We did yoga in PE and talked about stupid highschool girl things.

And to think if I’d actually seriously applied myself It would have been possible for me too. good on her.

#13

Image source: Mackntish, Pavel Danilyuk

Definitely the smelly kid. He wasn’t actually smelly, but the routine beatings and teasing definitely took the toll on this guy. He was just…non-functionally weird.

He apparently blossomed in college and ended up in law school. He became a lawyer for abused women, doing orders of protection and whatnot. He said his motivation was to stand up to bullies, so that no one had to endure what he did.

The next year I got laid off due to budget cuts and opened up my own law firm, which failed. My life’s back to being in the s**tter, but the reunion stands out as my high water mark.

#14

Image source: Tranesblues, Taylor Wilcox

I saw me go from being a daily smoked-out stoner who breezed through each year of high school with average grades to a middle school science teacher who last year received teacher of the year honors. I bet they never saw that coming. B***hes.

#15

Image source: fragilestories, Tomaz Barcellos

One girl who sat next to me in English class in junior and senior year. Thick coke bottle glasses, a bird’s nest of thick curly hair. She was always very nice and very smart, but super quiet and introverted.

I was an extroverted, outgoing jacka** so I used to ask her to read parts when we studied Shakespeare, invited her into my group for group projects and made her take speaking roles, that kind of thing. She was never really comfortable talking about herself and we never hung out outside of class, so I left school not knowing much about her except that she was smart, quick to grin at a joke, and had strong feelings about “The Crucible”.

Ten years later, this gorgeous woman shows up at our reunion. Smoking hot redhead, sparkling blue eyes, stacked hourglass figure. That goofy teenage grin had turned into a confident, knowing smile. She knew how to dress and make herself up to emphasize her assets and minimize her flaws. She was jaw-droppingly stunning.

We talked for a good hour. She was just a late bloomer. I apologized for always volunteering her for public speaking and she said it was one of the things that made her start to confront her shyness. She ended up going to an ivy league school and became a journalist, of all things.

We still chat from time to time.

Edit: no, we didn’t bang. I was happily engaged by my 10 year reunion and well settled into my career. She lived in Africa on assignment from a wire service. We were in very different places in our lives and I was and am happy to count her as a friend.

#16

Image source: cubosh, Honey Fangs

mega obese quiet kid (so huge everyone just exempted him from cruel remarks etc) – lost hundreds of pounds and also ended up being fabulously gay – showed up with his sassy little boyfriend — i was so happy for him

#17

Image source: nobody76, Keith Johnston

My husband and I went to the same high school but met years later. He was the football player all the girls wanted in bed and all the guys wanted to be with. I was the one people threw against lockers and treated like trash. When my reunion came around, one of the girls I had kept in contact with asked me to help with the website, so I said what the hell. When we showed up, quite a few people asked why he was there. He had graduated 2 years earlier. He said he was with his wife and just and took his seat. I walked in and took a seat as they were thanking those who helped with the reunion. When they announced my name, people looked around slightly confused. I stood, like the others and you could hear a pin drop. Apparently I changed quite a bit in that ten years. My husband raised his glass and smiled again. It was awesome.

#18

Image source: TexasScooter, wikipedia

One kid was fairly small, quiet and goofy. Nice kid, but nothing too special about him. We hung out a few times at speech/drama tournaments.

I had wondered what happened to him. Turns out he grew quite a lot and became quite popular. His acting career took him far. He’s been in several huge films, including X-Men.

We knew him as Jimmy. Today he goes by a more mature name of James – James Marsden.

I hope he’s still a cool, goofy guy deep down that I remember from the few times we hung out.

#19

Image source: ptcptc, Jacky Lam

The kid who was stealing motorcycles and selling them for parts is now a police officer. He was never accused or convicted of course but I knew that for a fact.
Let’s hope people sometimes *do* change.

#20

Image source: DelbertDumbbutt, Mark Neal

A dude that I saw drop acid in class on multiple occasions had become a youth preacher. The girl voted best looking had become a chain-smoking drunk who had somehow aged 30 years in a decade. The goth girl that I would sometimes smoke weed and talk about John Waters movies with had become some kind of Stepford wife.

A lot of people seemed genuinely shocked that I hadn’t been stabbed to death in a back alley somewhere. Never realized I had such a reputation in high school :S