like many things, there are some pretty significant unintended consequences though. In my district in Texas, parents would send their kids to the worst high school in the district because it was dramatically easier to be top 4% and get auto-admit to UT that way
Granted UT Austin is really well ranked, that seems like a terrible move for the kids. Like, great, you got in to this really well regarded school, but your preparation to get there may well be considerably worse than nothing at all.