[vineel]

I am Asian.

What I've noticed is that the kids who have to be "forced" to study ad-nauseum usually aren't the top performers. They're around the middle, but their families desperately want them to be the top.

The top students are much more self motivated. They tend to be more or less equivalent to their supposedly more-well-rounded white counterparts.

[ruswick]

I agree. As a high-school student, I notice that the top few percent of the class is comprised primarily of individuals who either 1) are innately intelligent (to the extent that innate ability exists at all. Obviously, there are many confounding factors in most of the criteria used to determine intelligence, and in many cases people misinterpret privilege with actual tallent. The people who are "innately smart" are those that can perform well with minimum effort, for whatever reason) or 2) work hard but are intrinsically motivated.

Few people manage to get ahead solely through being compelled to work hard. It's very difficult to force someone to sacrifice four years of their life to attain a goal that they themselves are ambivalent about.