Sorry I'm late but this study could shed some light on your concerns. To quickly summarize, students who percieve they have higher academic ability relative to their peers have less psychosomatic complaints. In other words, they're "happier". https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-5977-5

Furthermore, Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers" has a couple good chapters about career success between students who were average at an elite school vs those who were elite at an average school. Spoiler, the "elite at an average school" students had much higher traditional metrics of success.