A kid has to take a test to get in and top scorers get a spot. So a child has to choose to take the test, or the parent pushes them to do so. Kids at Hunter take the test as a matter of course. Some don't make it into the high school, but not too many.
As for the kids that are not at Hunter and take the test, there is a different dynamic. And that dynamic probably plays itself out in other ways. The parents are obsessing about where the kid is going to go to middle school and high school and testing is big for both and highly competitive for the top schools. So if the child comes from this type of background, there is ambition and drive for the education built into the family dynamic. While parents of Hunter kids may be more laissez faire, like I would have been, ...maybe.
So I do not think it has to be near death experience. There was young boy from Harlem, a few years back, amazing kid. Had a part-time job, traveled more than hour from school each way. Got into 6 IVs, including Harvard. This was a kid that had a tough life but not near death -- not one they mentioned, just a tough life.
Psychic trauma and near death don't make for drive, struggle does.
Ren
