Success in architectural practice is not to do with marks or money. When you finish your architectural studies and go out there either to practice or to work under someone, you would be rated as per the work you produce. And the quality of work would depend on the processes you undertake to produce the work. My advice to you is to forget about marks (I know its easier said than done when you are under the pressure of being a student) and concentrate on getting the processes (the "verbs" ) right so that the product; i.e. the design (the "noun") turns out right. I've seen much too often students erroneously aping the final product of some other architect instead of learning and using the processes.
As far as attaining success... "success" is a very difficult word to define. I agree with Henri there. Unlike mathematicians and scientists who can produce quite path-breaking work when they are quite young (many of them even in their teens and twenties) Architects are known to produce poor quality work when they are young and they start maturing only when they reach their middle age. Their productivity (the number of works done) may drop after that, but the quality of works generally improves. That is why, we see a lot of important and quality works done by old architects.
Architectural practice requires weaving together knowledge from different domains. You need to braid together multiple strands of knowledge. A good quality work would have a larger set of issues (braids) that were handled together than a poorer one. For an architect to comprehend each of those strands and the process of braiding them together; it would take time. It is simply a complex process. In the meantime, he gets old
In short, production of good architecture usually means a long wait :blink: It is good that you developed a passion for it since you were ten years old. I am sure you would go further ahead
Best wishes
-Sabu Francis