It’s not impossible. Like everything there are trade-offs.
At the engineering schools that I know outside the US, entry is based entirely on a specific set of exam results. The exams are most often fairly narrow (eg, mostly science and math based), and students have often been on the STEM-only track for at least 2 years, sometimes 4 years. Think admissions based entirely on how you did on AP Calc BC / Physics (all) / Chemistry (or in some countries, those + a modern language, and your national language).
Because these schools are fully/nearly fully funded by the government, they are affordable for almost everybody, but resources are stretched, so when you arrive at university you are thrown straight into the deep end. It’s a production line, with little to no subject choice in the first year or two, huge lectures, few if any support mechanisms. You may have no graded continuing assessment, just finals that cover the entire year. So, it’s sink or swim, and the attrition rate is high. Even at smaller universities it is remarkably regimented and impersonal, especially in the first 2 years.
I taught in the engineering school of a smaller university outside the US. A new Dean (homegrown, but did their PhD in Stanford)- was introducing radical concepts such as student feedback surveys. People were shocked to find that the longer students were in the program the less they actually wanted to be engineers.