alt Hacker NewsUniversities in the US and other countries are not the same, and comparing them is not really fruitful.
US universities do care about extracurriculars and GPA and other things because they aren’t optimizing for raw academic performance, they’re optimizing for various other things like an interesting student body (that attracts donors, professors, and future students), real-world networks, and so on.
In other words an extra four years of day care before those students have to function independently as adults.