Not sure why you are down voted. I think not is a fantastic question. I've seen raw intelligence in some high schoolers and near zero motivation. What about the

Not sure why you are down voted. I think not is a fantastic question. I've seen raw intelligence in some high schoolers and near zero motivation. What about their lives and environment prevents them from stretching and self-motivating? I think part of it is environment: they don't see others who they can emulate that they can relate to or others that support them in their peer group. Part of it is innate - and this is the part I relate to. For me, I did not know what I was going to do after, but I knew that school/university was the only way I would get there. I put my efforts towards that. My passion was to not be in the situation(s) my parents were in. That meant waking up at 4am in highschool to do homework or study to help get the eventual near-fullride scholarship to a university. Some of my cohort would rather just play videogames or do other things to escape their reality.