My oldest was in the top 2% of his class, and was on the Dean’s list first two terms of college. The college he went to (or at least his sub-school) was full of kids like him. After that he had a much bigger mix of grades, concentrating on what interested him. He had at least one physics course where the TA didn’t like his labs, and another course where he slept through the midterm, but aced the final. He didn’t graduate with any kind of honors, but he’s in his dream job anyway. (CS major.)
Other kid was in the top 6% of his class in high school, although his grades were in the B+/A- range, his SAT scores were such that verbal was top 25% of his class, math bottom 25%. He got a C+ in the most quantitative course he took (economics), and he got C’s in Arabic freshman year. He spent part of the summer after freshman year in Jordon and got B’s in Arabic sophomore year, spent junior year in Jordan and got A’s in Arabic as a senior. I know he went to the writing center at least once as a freshman because he told us what they thought his main issues were. He didn’t get honors either, but that wasn’t helped by the fact that all his junior year abroad grades (straight A’s) weren’t included in his GPA. He was on the Dean’s List as a senior. He’s gainfully employed too.
I don’t know what all that goes to show except that you can’t predict much.