In real life, if you typically take twice as long do something as your coworkers, you will be let go.
Actually, in real life there are quite a lot of different jobs that require quite a lot of different skills. Some jobs reward working really fast, in others accuracy is more important than speed. We also should not assume 17 year olds are fully formed - some students learn very different study skills in college.
Some jobs require skills well tested by bubble sheet math, science tests, but most probably don't. There is not one right way of thinking - we need people who approach tasks differently.
We don't know what this student's scores are by the way. I've met students with 95% tile composites who thought they'd "failed" it because all of their friends scored higher. At any rate, if you seriously have never met people who have done well in life despite average or mediocre SAT scores it is time to broaden your social circle.
