Yep, that is why my family moved to the US from Russia. My mom wanted to be a doctor, but wasn't accepted to medical school even though she got straight As and was completely qualified. They just said they can't accept her because she's Jewish, and there is nothing she could do about it. I'm really glad I got to grow up here in America.
"For a Jewish boy [sic] gifted in mathematics to be admitted to a university, there were three possibilities: hope you were one of the two Jews accepted at Leningrad University every year; go somewhere with less draconian admission policies; or make it onto the Soviet team for the International Mathematical Olympiad, which guaranteed admission to Leningrad University. Perelman decided to try out for the team."
Moral questions aside, I wonder if forcing entire ethnic groups to "perform for the country" in order to earn social status is really that bad. A lot of countries have done it across the centuries (Rome, France, UK, Arabs... and more recently US and USSR); they were usually successful in "extracting value" from those groups in the short term, while in the long term fostering a sense of belonging to a non-discriminatory ideal of citizenship.
Even in this case, the Soviets might have discriminated generations of Jews, but then they produced a Perelman.
Similar story: My dad was his high school's valedictorian in Kiev, but couldn't get a spot at a regular university. He ended up getting a degree in 'applied physics' from a night school after his military service. I think he's always regretted not becoming a researcher. My grandfather also did really well in high school, tried to become an archaeologist but it wasn't a common profession in the USSR and university positions were mainly reserved for well connected non-Jews.
