The reality is, all of then knows difference between participation tropey and winning. Maybe trophies smooth over feeling bad for not being winner, maybe not, I dunno. Obsessing over them is ridiculous on its own sake.
Top schools are more competitive then ever. High schoolers need to adjust their whole life to have a chance to get in. Competitions are harder then ever.
Kids spend way more time in organized activities to get every bit of performance out of them - the only exception is likely football which is suspect of destroying their brains.
On average, kids have little time to just play around without working on something.
