Depending on the culture, mores, and values, the word success has multiple definitions.
When I speak of the success of students, I could not frame it any elegantly than Annie Yi, Associate Director of Product Marketing at EAB (Educational Advisory Board):
"For students, success consists not just of good grades and steady progress toward graduation, but a holistic sense of fulfillment."
My students' success has much to do with ambition. But also in juxtaposition, it has much to do with the cultural norms, mores, morals, values, and their environment.
And, notwithstanding, those individuals who pour unselfishly and sacrificially into their lives.
Therefore, students' success is an accumulative process of the student's ambition/drive and others' acquisitions.
Take a moment to read the success of ten students, whom I had and currently have the distinct honor to help them down the road to academic achievement and greater independence.