Parent already discussed this but at tier-one schools almost everyone (except legacy/athletic of course) has saturated the test score metric. Most applying have a max SAT or ACT. Most have a 4.0+ GPA. A 34 ACT score is in the bottom 40% of MIT applicants as far as I can tell.

The only thing that distinguishes applicants is the soft social stuff.

Japan and South Korea kind of fixed this problem with cram schools and ridiculously overtuned college admission exams. But e.g. KAIST isn’t really comparable to MIT.