I'm an immigrant. I used to be poor. (after rigorous testing, etc., etc.,) I was given financial aid and accepted into one of the more prestigious private middl

I'm an immigrant. I used to be poor. (after rigorous testing, etc., etc.,) I was given financial aid and accepted into one of the more prestigious private middle schools near me. After that, I went to a (very good) public high school. The difference was that of night and day. The middle school put me ahead of my high school colleagues. I was a year ahead in math, and two years ahead in english. Their computer science education led me to taking APCS a year early, with CS courses at a university shortly thereafter. They had even prepared me for standardized testing like the SSAT and SAT. Yes, your family's important. Yes, there's some anti-intellectualism along the bottommost socioeconomic ranks. But the quality of one's school is a massive factor in how one learns.