First off the main component that schools classify intelligence by is memory processing. In "gifted students" it takes 2 or less repetitions of information for the student to recall it. In average students it takes 7-12 repetitions. In below average students it takes 15+ repetitions.

Highly intelligent kids in school do a lot less work/effort than bright or average intellegent ones. They don't to put much effort into repetition to outperform everyone.

When lots of effort is required later on in life, the highly intelligent ones often fall behind.

In my opinion the graph is wrong on the top. Excellence is usually the higher than average intelligent people, not the top end intelligent ones.

Most graduate students are from bright/average students. They are the ones with the combination of intelligence and effort to succeed.

I think I know what you're saying. Hope you don't mind if I take a stab at it.

Knowing failure and overcoming challenges is a skill. A skill that often is underdeveloped by intelligent people in their youth because of being naturally ahead of their peers early on. Some intelligent people finally hit a challenge where they need this skill later on in an environment that is less forgiving (like in college) and absolutely flounder.

Maybe contribute to the not-fucked-up parts of society. Help individuals. Do what you can for those around you. We've never lived in a time where humans are more aware of humanity's worst actions than we do today, but humans have always been doing fucked up shit, along with really awesome shit, forever.

As a child, my school evaluated all students' IQs, and the ones above a certain score were labeled "MGM" (mentally gifted minors) and put into "gifted" classes. Nothing has held me back more in life than being told I'm objectively smarter than someone else.

It has taken years to respect the virtue of discipline in learning. Throughout school, and then into adult life, if something didn't come easily to me, I would abandon it instantly, because the notion of having to work for a skill was so foreign to me.

We should never praise the child (you're so smart), we should praise their effort (great work on this).

Fuck... I'm too colorblind to tell if I should be flattered or offended

if you're smart enough to know how dumb you are, you're not that dumb.

or something idk

I feel like as a kid I was in the mid/low yellow and now I'm in the blue and that's probably true for basically everyone because we centre education right in the part of our lives when we're least motivated to learn things. Now I'm actually mature enough to understand how cool things like history and mathematics can be but I'm also past any form of public education.

I'm in the green and it mostly blows chunks, for what it's worth.