The OP is not attending one of those schools. However, even at the Andover/Exeter/Stuyvesant tier of HS, the number of applicants admitted to any particular college is most likely less than it was 14 years ago.
Indeed. Compared to how glacially slow other areas of academia move, the changes in admissions processes move at warp speed. I’ve said before on this site, Michele Hernandez has not set foot in an admissions office since my dad was a college applicant. I’m fairly sure that his experiences in the process a generation ago was dramatically different than mine.