The US definitely puts way too much stress on our high school students. I think that this is a major problem that harms our kids. The fact that just getting great grades in tough classes is not enough for admissions to top universities adds quite a bit to the pressure. It also adds to the lack of sleep for kids who get home exhausted after three hours of ECs and still need to do homework for their AP classes.
I still remember the papers coming off the printer after midnight. This was a regular part of high school for both daughters. I would take the papers up to them and say goodnight.
My two daughters reacted quite differently to this. One thrives with stress and always being busy. She found high school stressful, but managed it okay. The university application process was very stressful, with affordability just adding to the problem. The other is brilliantly intelligent but does not deal well with stress. We needed to keep her focused on not worrying about anything other than doing well in school. Since we live near the northeast corner of the US there are quite a few schools to the north and northeast of us in Canada that are not too far away and that admit mostly based on grades. This meant that she did not need to worry about ECs at all, and also did not need to worry about cost. This reduced the university admissions process to mostly just deciding which school to attend – admissions itself became a non-issue (she had trouble believing this until the acceptances came in given the process that her friends were going through).
I think that parents need to pay attention to their kids, and help each kid to get though this insane process. Different kids will react differently, and we need to pay attention to the differences.
Which means that I agree with the original post except one point varied for us: For us the elite schools were not the most affordable. This will of course vary depending upon many factors.