<p>f their SATs were notThe only kids I know who have B-grades and commensurate test scores who get into the more selective colleges are athletes. On rare occaisions, URMs from highly disadvantaged backgrounds who achieve at tough schools such as the ones in the ABC and Prep for Prep programs may get a break, but my experience has been that even those kids who are doing remarkably well at prep schools when they are from such disparate backgrounds do not get into the most selective schools though they may be accepted into schools that their stats would not ordinarily support. Such kids tend to do well in college, as some of those prep schools that have these programs are very rigorus and do an outstanding job preparing kids for college. Many of these kids, even the lower end of the class find the first two years of college vey easy after going through such programs. So unless the kids are accepted to some true sweatshop programs in college, they will tend to do well as they are very well prepared and are used to working their tails of on material that is very difficult for them to comprehend. Many athletes in that situation, if they are not from rigorous highschools either do not make it through college, are helped by the athletic program to get through college, and take a suggested route through the "slacker" courses that some colleges have. Duke, an outstanding school that offers some of the premier courses and classes in the country, also has academic paths that their basketball team, among others , can take that do are not so academically strenuous. No can do at MIT. </p>
<p>But if you are talking about a kid who just is not with the program, a bright kid who just isn't doing his work who somehow gets into a tough school, that is a different story. They usually flunk out. The dysfunctions that prevent getting better grades in highschool usually translate into failure at college. As NSM says, the transcript is the single best predictor of future academic success, not the test scores. Now if you get some wildly creative kid who has a mismatch with his school and can't abide by busywork but knows his fundamental well, he may do well in college, particularly if he goes into a field where his classes and activities are more in line with his interests. A friend of ours had all kinds of problems with her artistic but academically demotivated son while he was in highschool, but he is in his glory at Pratt. How he would be doing in a more traditional school would be questionable especially if he had to take core courses like the one you have take in highschool. He was just mentally done with that part of his life. I can tell you that kids with very strong grades in tough courses tend to do very well in college even i so high, but the other way around is a different story.</p>