How is this sentence "working" after として?

Question

I came across the following sentence in a manga I was reading:

急いでるみたいだけど間に合ったとして赤点回避なんてできると思ってるの

A boy is being accompanied by a group of girls and they are hurrying to school so they can make it in time for a mid term exam. While on their way to school, they run into a young boy who lost his mother and is asking for help. One of the girls says the sentence in question to the boy. I would also like to add that the boy (not the lost boy) was making a big deal about getting to school on time and hurrying.

In the first part of the sentence (before として), 急いでるみたいだけど間に合った , I believe that she says, "It seems that we were hurrying, however, to be in time (past tense)." The past tense threw me off. I believe that is because it relies on the second part of the sentence.

Then として, from what I've seen, seems to only come after a noun, and what came before it isn't modifying anything that bundles it into a noun. I've also seen a few English translations for it that make it out to be "as for" or "from the viewpoint of" and the following post, What does として mean here?, makes me believe that this may just be an instance of と する.

What comes after として seems to be saying that the speaker thinks that they can avoid getting a failing mark on the test and the use of なんて seems to be downplaying the importance of the situation. (They would fail if they were late.) So the whole sentence would be something like, "It seems like we are hurrying, however I think we can make it in time and avoid failing our tests." I believe this to be right but I just can't see how the Japanese is working here.

So my question is, how is everything working here? What's the translation of this sentence? How is として used? Does the と particle have one of its typical functions here like its conditional use and why is 間に合った in the past?

Answer 1

「急{いそ}いでるみたいだけど間{ま}に合{あ}ったとして赤点回避{あかてんかいひ}なんてできると思{おも}ってるの」

Because practically no punctuations are used in manga, I get to place some here.

「急いでるみたいだけど、間に合ったとして (comma optional here) 赤点回避なんてできると思ってるの ？」

Firstly, this is basically a question.

Secondly, you seem to be "seeing" the wrong 「として」here. This 「として」 is conditional -- "even if". I could end my answer right here as this would automatically clear up your other doubts as well.

「間に合ったとして」＝「もし間に合ったとしても」

Why use the past tense 「間に合った」? Well, wouldn't you do the same in English? "Even if we made it to school in time"? This is the conditional 「た」 and not the past-tense 「た」 though the two come in the same form (just as in English).

Please remember that the past tense is only one of the usages of 「た」. We get so many questions about 「た」 here that I have to wonder if they actually teach outside of Japan that 「た」 always denotes past tense.

My own TL:

"You/We seem to be in a hurry, but even if we made it to school in time, do you really think we could avoid flunking?"