Same; I pretty much gave up on my math abilities (though I went through two stages: gave up in fourth grade, got some confidence in middle school, but then gave up in high school) and, as a result, am not a computer science major (not that I think English was a bad choice, but I would've taken more compsci courses as well).

So linking 'smarts' to effort is definitely the way to go, and people who make dumb comments about adopting *cough* myoldroommate *cough* need to be...re-educated.