Wasn't the most successful mRNA vaccine developed by migrants working in Germany?

The CEO of BioNTech, when he was 10, wasn't considered good enough to attend a Gymnasium.

Coming from a family of turkish Gastarbeiters, I am not surprised. You still have that problem in Germany, and I think it only got worse during the pandemic.

Edit: The Biontech founder comes from a turkish family, I don't. But I see that happening a lot, first during my school days. And now at my children's schools.

Maybe it didn’t get worse, but it still demonstrate what’s the result and maybe the objective of these strict selection criteria: that discriminated minorities end up being excluded. Let it be children with foreign origin in Germany (which doesn’t stop after a generation) or whatever minority is being excluded from this very important American school.

And given that people leave high school barely capable of reading newspaper articles (otherwise Breitbart or the Daily Mail would even be a thing), I don’t see what this selection is for.

> that discriminated minorities end up being excluded. Let it be children with foreign origin in Germany (which doesn’t stop after a generation)

Except of course for the founders of BoiNTech: Uğur Şahin, and Özlem Türeci.

Included to the point they got German government-funded PhDs and then other native Germans helped co-found their company.

Perhaps you hypothesis needs more data and less feelings?

Well, two people succeeding against all odds hardly qualify as data. Especially when every single PISA study tells you otherwise.

Unless, of course, you buy into all that dishwasher to millionaire you can achieve anything if you want but don't expect a helping hand BS.

The CEO of BioNTech was told to attend a lower level school, which wouldn’t have allowed him to go to university. He claims that if it weren’t for a German neighbour he would not have gone to a gymnasium. This is a form of discrimination.

> Caltech requires good grades as criteria for admission. Caltech graduates have a disproportionately high percentage of Nobel prizes.

Caltech requires 10-year-old kids to write essays?

Again, are we talking about enrolling 10-year-old kids in highschool or are we talking about hiring microbiologists?

First, high school starts with 14 year olds, not 10.

Second, people don't suddenly learn how to write a competent essay at the last minute. Writing a good one is a combination of many skills learned over many years.

BTW, I did not take any college prep courses prior to Caltech, and found myself way behind the other freshman who did. I found out many years later that the admissions committee had taken a chance on me, and they were very nearly wrong. I came that close to flunking out.

If public schools dump their gifted tracks, inequality will only increase as the top schools will wind up drawing only from private schools.

Admission essays are a literary genre of their own, like the weird language used by some state bureaucracies. Knowing how to write these essays is a splinter skill.

Anyway, so you should not have been admitted but you succeeded anyway without being a gifted kid? It seems like you have proved my point.

8th graders are typically 12-13 years old, not 10 - 10 year olds are typically in the 6th and 7th grade.