Although a burgeoning body of research has illustrated the association of students' grit with psychosocial functioning, little is known about how different grit profiles may diverge in this association. We took a person-centered approach to identify distinctive students' profiles based on two grit facets (passion and perseverance) and evaluate the mediating effect of gratitude in the grit-depressive symptoms link across the estimated profiles. A total of 326 students (aged from 18-25 years; 68.1% female) completed self-report questionnaires. A latent profile analysis revealed four grit profiles (entropy = .86 ≥ 0.80; smallest group% = 10% ≥ 5%; BLRT = 0.01 < 0.05) based on grit items: Low Grit (9.8%; low passion-low perseverance), High Grit (17.8%; high passion-high perseverance), Insufficient Perseverance (33.1%; high passion-low perseverance), and Insufficient Passion (39.3%; low passion-high perseverance). The path model analysis—controlling for gender and age—showed that a significant mediation model was only observed in Insufficient Passion group, but not in the other three grit profiles. We found that the effect of grit on depressive symptoms is only completely explained by gratitude in those students with insufficient passion for long-term goal striving. Our results also highlight the importance of person-centered grit intervention development. Gratitude, as a positive emotion, is not effective in alleviating depression symptoms for those students with insufficient perseverance for long-term goal striving.