Does it though, or is it more survivorship bias and maybe lucking into finding someone who will spend hours mentoring you?
I've mentored quite a few first semester students (in my spare time, to help. Not as a job) and there is no way some of them would've passed without serious help.
At some point I used to think privately that CS should have a programming test as an admission exam, because these students did drag everyone down. If medicine and law have admission restrictions, why not CS too?
But I have changed my opinion because I think everyone deserves a real opportunity, and our school system does not provide a level playing field sadly. (Also the medicine & law admission criteria are GPA based and that is the last thing I'd want for CS.)
Anyway the real filter was always maths.
