Anonymous wrote:I guess I’m from the school of Hard Knocks. There’s a reason that Jews and Asians punch way above their weight academically. They’re not smarter. They work harder and are more disciplined (I’m Jewish). I’m reading way too many excuses and rationalizations in the comments above. I don’t doubt that some kids face real challenges and I don’t mean to demean them. However, I hold multiple Ivy degrees. I met a few really smart people in school. But, by and large, my classmates were like everyone else but put in more effort to achieve. I’ve found the same thing in my career.
Did your parents emphasize education, push you to work hard, and provide support that enabled you to do so (prioritizing homework and academic achievement even when it was burdensome for the family)? If so, that's your leg up. It's also not limited to Asian and Jewish kids, though culturally those communities have strong traditions of supporting academics. But you can find families of every race and religion who do this and, lo and behold, their kids tend to do well academically and professionally.
It's frustrating because you think "well why don't all parents do this?" The answer is generational -- if your parents didn't do this, then you won't know how to do it for your kids. It's also hard to do this, and requires some degree of selflessness and sacrifice. People generally learn how to do that from their own parents. Breaking that pattern is incredibly hard.
If you had a family that prioritized your education and made sure you learned how to excel in academic and professional environments, be grateful and try to understand how incredibly hard it would be for someone to achieve your success without any of that support.