If tutors really do reliably produce two-sigma learning gains, then why aren't most top achievers the product of tutors? Yes, they're expensive, but perhaps "only" 2-3x private school; there are a lot of wealthy parents. Diminishing returns for high achievers?
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How are you defining achievement? Something quantitative (and with a ceiling) like SAT scores/AP exams or something more vague with kind of no ceiling like college admissions/"success in life"?
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Pick whatever you like: impactful inventions; valuable companies; influential cultural output; etc.
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Don't most people realize, at least subconsciously, that a family's cultural and real capital assets are more predictive of that than any innate "ability" that could be drawn out with the help of a tutor?
How many parents actually care that their children are super achievers?
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Hm, good point. Maybe it's a threshold effect. Many wealthy families pay for private schools but figure (perhaps correctly) that the marginal cost of a private instructor wouldn't be worth the marginal gain.
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And sadly, the gains that one gets from institutional associations (Exeter, Harvard, Google) on the whole likely outweigh what would come from really really applying oneself (with help from a tutor) without those institutional affiliations and the opportunities they afford.
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