Actually, though, this has some truth to it. Not only that, but the truth of the statement is directly proportional to the quality of the institution the student attends (or at least the German philosophy department of said institution)
I wrote two papers on Kant in uni, neither of which received an A.
My take is that intelligence follows a distribution curve for which graders at any decent college are only able to effectively evaluate the upper quartile, minus the top 1 or 2 percent. If you happen to be pushing the top 1 or 2 percent, you either have to lower yourself to the level of your graders or write your best thoughts and expect to receive less than the best grades for them.
If you follow the first track, you can expect the usual laurels for 'achievement.' If you follow the second, you can expect to increase your intelligence at a higher rate, which may (or may not) have some payback later on.
