Absolutely!
The primary cause of my own poor performance was simple priority.
I'm in charge of what I learn, how much focus it gets, why, etc...
That differed very considerably from the official program at times and I really didn't care.
Things like learning and writing assembly language programs were far more compelling and useful than say, learning the cold war bloc nation status was.
Where that was true, I did the minimum to comply, otherwise devoting max time and resources to completing projects, building things, picking up skills.
Frankly, all of that, for me, paid off far better. It was no contest.
Later in life, a lot of those irrelevant things became relevant, and got the same treatment.
Not everyone does this, or if they do, does it well. But to answer the question here, yes. Totally happens.
I had several peers doing similar things. Most had similar outcomes.
Re: exceptional. That's very hard to measure. I won't speak to that here, save to say I was smart enough to want to do, and see success in doing the things I gave priority to.
