> 2. These rules work because there's a significantly smaller portion of the population who truly knows themselves and embraces their eccentric characteristics. We typically lose our identity when going through a formal means of schooling because we want to fit in and thus be "average". Even those valedictorians are quite "average" outside of working harder to get perfect grades. How many do you know that went on to do the amazing things expected of them? Usually it's the people who were eccentric and didn't do so well in school.

I don't know if I agree. If you look at many of the most influential positions in many institutions, it's far and away majority filled by valedictorians, first-in-class, degree havers. Very few times will there be a highschool drop out neurosurgeon, or never graduated college politician. Even the technical geniuses in code of our time often came from wealthy backgrounds, attended MIT or another well regarded technical school or had direct tutelage/mentorship from someone else with that background. You can obviously point to examples, so-and-so dropping out of Harvard... but at that point they were already in Harvard which one doesn't get to do if they sucked shit at school.