When I was tutoring HS kids (as a grad student myself), we also had afternoon practices for the kids that wanted to compete in the math olympiads. Truth be tol

When I was tutoring HS kids (as a grad student myself), we also had afternoon practices for the kids that wanted to compete in the math olympiads. Truth be told, some of the kids loved it - but those were the kids that were really passionate about math, for the sake of math. But you also had a bunch of kids that seemingly hated every second of it. So why did they do it? - Some had pushy parents that wanted them to excel in extracurricular activities. Think typical tiger parenting... - Some had big ambitions about certain schools, and felt that they had to compete on a national level in something, in order to stand out in the selection/application process. Granted, this was over 15 years ago. A couple of years ago I checked up on some of the kids (LinkedIn), and the most passionate kids were either now math/physics Ph.Ds, or Ph.D track.