How can this be true while on the other spectrum I read that schools are lowering requirements and in general maths and physics are dumbed down - while there is a bloom of bs social science where required is showing up an that’s it.
American society is multimodal. I went to an urban high school that was frequently lowering requirements/making it easier to graduate, but among the people I considered my peer college competitors, the extracuricullar oneupmanship is frequent and seemed much more intense than in the prior generations.
Both can be true. Entrance examinations are at least meritocratic in some sense. On the other hand, these open ended admissions means there's an arms race to the bottom to make your profile look stronger than someone else's, that's why the need to fill it with extra-curriculars and stuff.