Intelligence

Intelligence is portrayed in today's society as a quality of a person. It's something innate, divorced from the context of society, and which can even be measured.

IQ in particular has roots in eugenics and (obviously) neuronormativity. In practice, people think differently, but not objectively better or worse than others. Personal differences in things like grades (which are also rooted in racism and eugenics, see aforementioned link) are determined by access to educational resources, not any innate qualia. Anyone can learn anything, socioeconomic circumstances can prevent them from having the time to study and concentrate and eat and sleep healthily and have access to a teacher who can help them when they need it.

Additionally, people may learn better in situations that our neuronormative educational system doesn't supply.

Society then places such importance on these faux measures of intelligence, like GPA, that it motivates students to cheat, or at least align their sense of self-worth with how “smart” society tells them they are.

But those faux measurements aren't even what really determines their future, not directly. High school GPA mostly determines which college they go to, but what matters more for that is what college(s) your parents went to, creating a reproducing hierarchy with only a little mobility. And college GPA only matters for perhaps your first or second job out of college, and even then not as much as what college gave you the number, which as established is still determined by your parents.