[Czarcasm]

This is probably the best counterargument to raise in response to the "late-bloomer" anecdotes that many people raise.

For every unit of societal productivity created by a late bloomer that is saved by a common-stream system, I would personally argue that there is an order of magnitude more societal productivity lost by holding back the more typical high performers.

Late blooming intellectuals aren't the norm. Most highly intelligent people begin performing as such from a young age.

[umanwizard]

Yes, and it’s not just the high-performers who are being held back in American-style systems, but low-performers too, people who are either unsuited for or uninterested in academic work are forced to waste their time on something that doesn’t benefit them.