I disagree with ur theory of nurture over nature.....most students in elite schools come from rich elite backgrounds cause their parents have already been tested and proven to have superior genes and Intel.these elite parents have already booked their spots in elite schools from birth,because statistically and mathematically wise their children tend to perform better.....of course there may be one or two duds here and there....or turn out to be pretty normal,nothing is certain in life,ur iq will fall within a range of ur parents',like one or two bars on the distribution curve.....of course occasionally a freak of nature is born.
Over the decades the elite population in Singapore has been established,most of the coolie and farmer talent if u can call that talent has been sieved and filtered and separated from the rest of the population and groomed.....the remaining is the bottom 80 percent of the inferior peasant stock,the remaining of the crude oil,the substrate from the filtrate,the gutter junk from the gutter oil,now not saying all of them are stupid,but it will be harder and rarer for one of them to make it to a elite school,they will follow a distribution curve,50 percent will be below average or average,32.5 percent will be slightly above average or average,only the top 15 or 17.5 percent will be considered smart enough,in fact considering the bottom 80 percent come from a inferior gene stock,it will be even harder and rarer,I say only the top 5 or 10 percent can make it.
U might say that is unfair,but it is the hard truth,the top 10 or 15 percent of ITE or Poly is not as impressive as the top 10,15 percent of vjc,rjc....sure they are still good students,but the vjc will still beat them hands down...so u have to narrow the range of ur viewfinder,maybe only the top 3 to 5 percent of ITE might stand a chance against the typical VJC student.
So if u are lucky even if u came from some low class peasant family,with a extremely good roll of the dice,u might end up among the top 5,10 percent and still have a decent future.if u throw top 0.1 percent of the dice and win the genetic lotto,u can become the next chan Chun seng,I won't say Warren buffet or Elon musk because sinkies are coolies and farmers,job classes of coolies and farmers are limited....if u went to sing post and look at the stamp collection job classes of early Singaporeans,there's samsui woman,rickshaw pullers,hawker,PAP dog or administrator/lackey.