How about this as a counter-example? This guy essentially got into Harvard because of one accident with a plagiarised essay when he was a kid (at least, that’s the way he tells his story), and is now a member of faculty at Chicago. I think life outcomes might be more path-dependent than we like to admit.
The second half of his story has a fair amount of detail, and implies very strongly that he was conspicuously intelligent and the first high school he was at wasn’t all that bad for students.
Unfortunately, the transcript includes that his wife thinks he has a secret to happiness by controlling his attitude towards events, but doesn’t go into detail.
How about this as a counter-example? This guy essentially got into Harvard because of one accident with a plagiarised essay when he was a kid (at least, that’s the way he tells his story), and is now a member of faculty at Chicago. I think life outcomes might be more path-dependent than we like to admit.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college
The second half of his story has a fair amount of detail, and implies very strongly that he was conspicuously intelligent and the first high school he was at wasn’t all that bad for students.
Unfortunately, the transcript includes that his wife thinks he has a secret to happiness by controlling his attitude towards events, but doesn’t go into detail.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/transcript