I mean it's all a game as much as it sucks. One of my best friends in high school was a salutatorian because the school didn't wait grade. She took zero AP classes and very few honors classes. She knew what she was doing.

Friends in college took less challenging majors to boost GPA for med school (business admin, environmental policy, etc) to boost grades and there core classes were easy so it gave them more time to focus on med school pre-reqs.

It has been and always will be a game. Few things in this world come down to meritocracy because the way we socialize and the way we interview does not beget that in absolute terms.

Tech did a better-than-most job as a meritocracy for while, but I believe those days are done. Most areas f tech are too mainstream with too much obvious money at stake.