Do "C" Students End Up More Successful? | #76

By Armaan Athwal

Today's Overview:

• A, B, and C students aren’t fixed identities, they’re patterns of orientation

• How you applied yourself matters more than what you were told to learn

• Quote of the day

From Grades to Grit

There’s this weird myth that gets tossed around about A, B, and C students.

You’ve heard it.

“A students work for B students, and C students run the company.”

People nod along like it’s some hidden truth about the world, like you’ve unlocked a life hack by not doing well in school.

But the people who repeat it are rarely the ones doing anything exceptional. Usually, they’re just trying to justify not trying that hard. And that’s the problem. We turn this into a story about success when it’s really just a story about personality and misplaced effort.

Here’s what I’ve found to be more true:

“A” students are rule followers. They’re great at knowing what’s expected, doing it on time, and doing it well. They try to seek gold stars and move neatly along the path laid out for them. That makes them solid. Reliable. In many cases, very successful if the structure around them rewards that consistency.

But the same instinct that gets them straight A’s in school can make them rigid outside of it. They struggle when there’s no syllabus. They hesitate when things get messy and uncertain. The real world, unfortunately, is all messy and uncertain.

“B” students? They’re the middle path. Smart enough to do well, relaxed enough to not stress about perfection. They usually had something else going on, sports, social life, or whatever else. They know how to juggle. That skill translates well later on, especially in environments where context-switching and perspective matter more than raw output.

And “C” students… well, it’s complicated. Some are just disengaged. Others are focused, just not on what’s in front of them. Maybe they hated school but built PCs at home or spent hours learning music production, trading cards, or editing videos. Sometimes those obsessions lead somewhere real, other times, they don’t.

But what’s common is a higher tolerance for risk. They’re not demanding perfection. They go off-script earlier, sometimes recklessly, sometimes brilliantly.

People say, “When am I ever going to need this?” And they’re not wrong, at least not entirely. But that’s another conversation because it’s not about the curriculum. It’s about applying yourself. Could you sit down and learn something you didn’t care about? Could you grind through studying when it wasn’t fun? Could you finish something just because it had to be done?

That’s the part that sticks with you—in jobs, in relationships, in side projects, in building something from scratch. That’s what matters.

This whole A/B/C archetype still shows up long after you’ve left the classroom. Some people follow the rules. Some play the middle. Others go off-road.

The real key isn’t to fit yourself into a type. It’s to understand your natural orientation and actually use it.

Because the people who get somewhere aren’t trying to become something they’re not. They’ve just learned how to position what they already are and then they go all in.

Quote of the Day

“What makes a child gifted and talented may not always be good grades in school, but a different way of looking at the world and learning.” - Chuck Grassley