Academic success depends on intelligence, creativity, but also the way you speak. Being someone coming from the outside (first in my family to do a PhD) this is something I discuss frequently with others that are in similar positions. We don’t struggle with research so much as understanding how to write in the same language, understanding what is “novel” or rather how to convey something is novel and not explain in a way that makes it obvious post hoc. Understanding which research topics are worthy or not. Some of this is even true for people who transfer fields. So I would expect you can find a gradient of the success compared to how closely aligned the child is to their parent’s research.
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