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<p>This may have less to do with Michael Jordan than demographics.</p>
<p>Decades ago, getting into a good state university or good non-elite private university was not especially difficult compared to now. That is likely because the population has grown faster than the number of places in those good universities. So one has to be “better” than one’s parents had to be in order to get admitted to the same university that one’s parents went to, due to increased admissions competition.</p>
<p>In addition, the elite universities reduced their preference for the scions of inherited socioeconomic eliteness in favor of more academic merit based admissions. Those complaining about what goes on behind closed doors in their admissions offices today may want to look up how they mainly took students from socially (but not necessarily academically) elite prep schools back then. So that meant that more people felt that they had a chance at the elite universities, if they got high enough grades and test scores, increasing the competitive push.</p>