Similar setup albeit perhaps a different (or just earlier?) outcome. Failed a bunch of classes in high school and flirted with dropping out. Two misdemeanor ar

Similar setup albeit perhaps a different (or just earlier?) outcome. Failed a bunch of classes in high school and flirted with dropping out. Two misdemeanor arrests for underaged drinking and pot. Graduated in bottom quintile of my high school class, one failure shy of being held back. Managed to get into a far away college with a scholarship on the basis of a letter of recommendation from one of those once-in-a-lifetime teachers for whom I'll be forever grateful. Did fine in college, got a 1600 on the GRE, went into dev work at startups and have since had a quite successful career. I feel like being smart saved my butt multiple times over. I don't think I would have gotten that LOR if I hadn't made an impression on that HS teacher, wouldn't have been able to self-teach CS as a non-programmer as easily without smarts to fall back on, etc. Maybe being smart was not a prerequisite for getting where I did, but I think it was a prerequisite for taking the winding path I took. And also a gigantic, heaping helping of luck as well.