I mean it's all a game as much as it sucks. One of my best friends in high school was a salutatorian because the school didn't wait grade. She took zero AP classes and very few honors classes. She knew what she was doing.
Friends in college took less challenging majors to boost GPA for med school (business admin, environmental policy, etc) to boost grades and there core classes were easy so it gave them more time to focus on med school pre-reqs.
It has been and always will be a game. Few things in this world come down to meritocracy because the way we socialize and the way we interview does not beget that in absolute terms.
Tech did a better-than-most job as a meritocracy for while, but I believe those days are done. Most areas f tech are too mainstream with too much obvious money at stake.
I don't understand why you are discrediting people who are taking the better path to med school. Work smarter, not harder.
There is also short game vs long game. For example, if you cheat on a test without learning the material. You might win the short game, but if that material was important and you need it later you're losing the long game. That said, if the material was just fluff and no one really cares. It's actually smart just to cheat and get by.
People who take the easy way or cheats to get around bureaucracy will do the same thing after you hire them at the job. They will do things like avoid password salting for your database unless you explicitly tell them to do it etc.
In other words, I don't want to hire "smart" people, I want to hire intelligent people who take pride in what they do and don't try to take shortcuts to make their lives easier at the expense of others.
Friends in college took less challenging majors to boost GPA for med school (business admin, environmental policy, etc) to boost grades and there core classes were easy so it gave them more time to focus on med school pre-reqs.
It has been and always will be a game. Few things in this world come down to meritocracy because the way we socialize and the way we interview does not beget that in absolute terms.
Tech did a better-than-most job as a meritocracy for while, but I believe those days are done. Most areas f tech are too mainstream with too much obvious money at stake.