Many parents seem have forgotten that kids are supposed to get top education instead of getting into "top" schools. As a results, we see kids take 15+ APs in high school, even though they leetcode into a FAANG after graduation (yes, I'm talking about your kids, parents in the bay area). Or worse, the kids burn out in high school. We see kids build novel clubs to "be a world leader" in high school and only abandon the idea once getting admitted. We see parents focus so much on rankings without thinking twice what exact a highly ranked university would offer to their kids. On the other hand, we see universities game the ranking systems. We see universities inflate their GPA scores. We see universities try every shady way to lower their admission rate.

I'm still hopeful, though. Eventually good education wins. Life is a marathon, not a 100m dash. Getting into college or not is merely the beginning of one's adult life. In larger scheme of things, which college one goes to or how many APs one takes hardly matters.