op probably means to have a chance getting in to a top tier university. To that I agree, a HS student is competing with the whole world to get one of the very few spots in one of the top universities. Given the pool of applicants, all of which are very high achieving kids, the competition is very wide and deep.
That might have been what he meant, but it's not what he said.
The competition to get into top universities has always been fierce. The only thing that has changed AFAICT is the wide-spread promulgation of the idea that if you don't get in to a top-tier university that you're a failure, your life is over, you're doomed to be destitute. It's no wonder that if we tell kids that, that they will be pretty unhappy if they don't get in to a top-tier university. But the only thing we need to do to solve that problem is to stop telling kids that, especially since it isn't actually true.
The other thing that changed is a couple billion more families are trying to get into the same American schools, and many of them have substantial money and resources plus determination to do it.
That’s just wildly different than what it was like when I was applying in the 1990s. It’s substantive.
That's almost by definition true. Something like 8-9% of the USA's population is millionaires, lots of times just from housing and 401K appreciation. 8-9% of the population didn't graduate from top tier schools.
