SMART seems to be results-oriented, but some things are process oriented. Lemme splain. I’ve been on the other side (giving out the grades) and optimizing for grades does not always optimize for knowledge (using information correctly) and it does in particular not optimize for wisdom (using knowledge correctly). Furthermore grades are not a perfect measure of understanding, particularly not real world applicability. One may say grades are well correlated with cleverness but not so correlated with intelligence. Hence in problems that have no easily definable solution (perhaps it is not known if there even is a solution) the SMAR part fails entirely and the T part is undeterminable.

what I’m trying to say here is that education is process-oriented and not results-oriented.

For fear of hijacking the post — this has nothing to do with SMART per se — I would say that grades are only important insofar if one is not going to use one’s degree for anything but getting the foot in the door (the GPA>3.X from a top tier school BS on job ads). If actual learning is important, then forget all about the grades. Work the hardest at the hard courses and skate the easy ones even if triage (linear optimization) tells you otherwise. This will impress your network (professors) more and you will learn more as well so your education will be useful later on.