Abstract: To explore the predictive role of school connectedness on academic grit and provide a scientific basis for educational interventions, self-reported questionnaires were administered to 561 rural adolescents in Guangdong Province. Latent profile analysis was used to identify heterogeneous categories of academic grit, and the influence mechanisms of school connectedness and its three dimensions on academic grit were explored. Results showed that: (1) Rural adolescents’ academic grit was generally at a medium-high level, with significant differences across gender and grade; (2) Academic grit was classified into three latent categories: low, medium, and high levels; (3) School connectedness and its three dimensions exert a significant predictive effect on academic grit among students with medium and high levels of academic grit,whereas this predictive effect failed to reach statistical significance for those with low levels of the construct. These findings deepen the understanding of rural adolescents’ academic grit and its influencing factors, providing theoretical support for targeted interventions and educational policy development.