Imagine you are literally magnus carslen, With 2800~ rating the best chess player in the world. And your job is to "pretend" to blend in. But, you don't know how low you should sandbag.
You get into this so called "the most prestigious chess school" so you'd thought, oh, I should hold back my power and play at a 1800s rating. I mean, thats still 1000 less right? WRONG. You are literally the best player in the entire school right now. Your peers are LEVELS below you. You just made the same mistake as the mc did.
Its a bit understandable because in this context, he doesn't know his peer's ability (unlucky that he got in first). And he assumes that this is the school of the best of the top 0.001% of the youth (which is what he is).
Nahhhh I'm just kidding, he is dumb. There is no justification of it, he literally should've just shot a bullet straight to the target. Why did he have to do allat lmaoooooooooooooo.