[listmaking]

As data, here is a list of each year's top-ranked student in the IIT "joint entrance exam" (JEE) since 1979, and what they're doing now: https://dev.studentgiri.com/last-38-years-iit-jee-toppers/

I know a couple of them personally, and a fair number of other IIT graduates besides, and while many of them did work hard, all of them did/do have hobbies and all that, not quite fitting the "No life, no hobbies, burnout, lost childhood" headline or the rest of the picture painted here.

[lokeshk]

I didn't exhaustively scanned each entry, but sampled many (> 15) and one thing that I found to be odd was that all of them were male. I'm not sure if it's cultural but it's quite interesting.