Cindy Crawford was treated like she was "dumb" when she dropped out of college to become a model

Cindy has told how she was a valedictorian - a student with the highest academic ranking in a graduating class - during her school days, but people jumped to false conclusions about her intellect when she forged a career as a model.

She told OK! magazine: "Growing up, I wanted to be the first woman president of the United States.

"Then I wanted to be a doctor or maybe a teacher. Even now I could imagine myself in a job like that. I loved school.

"I was a straight-A student so I had big aspirations to do something big. I was valedictorian.

"I went to college but as soon as I dropped out to do modelling, people immediately treated me like I was dumb. I wasn't."

Asked how she dealt with that, she said: "Just by knowing myself and understanding that it was more a reflection on those people than it was on me."

Cindy is pleased the catwalk queens of today have a platform to voice their opinions, via social media, rather than being "just a magazine cover".

She said: "I think the biggest difference is that models now have a voice in a way we really didn't back then.

"Social media has given models the opportunity to show who they are as a person and that they're not just a magazine cover.

"Back in my day, there was this terrible assumption that if you were a model, you were dumb. I don't think that's the case now. And it never was."