>As someone who has interviewed and been rejected several times, I don't think cheating is why someone with good grades would do poorly at a coding interview.

As someone who has interviewed and been a TA at a top school, I would not be so quick to dismiss - especially for a broader definition of cheating.

In the school I went to (and I've anecdotally heard this is common for many top schools): Most professors don't change their homework sets and often don't change their exams either. The place was loaded with students who would get the assignments from older students and just memorize. As a TA, I remember one student who consistently only got the answers correct for questions that came from previous semesters, and got all the more original questions wrong - even trivial ones.

He was an extreme case, but the sentiment was strong in the student population, and is just as another commenter out there described: People who got to top schools tend to optimize for GPA, and not for learning. Most of my fellow students would refuse to learn anything beyond what was needed to get an A.

I get what you're saying: Live coding is not for everyone. But I also get what the GP is saying.