The grand iron is they all have the exact same extracurriculars and the exact same grades and what they're suffering from is that it's impossible to get your GPA above 4.0. since the schools don't care about your fancy 4.1's based on your high school's subjective weighting.
And they keep dodging the argument that when everybody in the room, has the same stats how do they expect these admissions people to let somebody in the program?
The harsh reality is you've gotta differentiate yourself at this level because everybody at that level is particularly good. It's just hilarious to me how they will see that there is a disproportionate amount of them in these institutions but never realize that the reason that their individual application did not go in is because their brother next door got in.
In the first article you listed , the guy said he was hesitant to put down that he played piano because all the Asians play piano but when Asians are 30% of the student body and 30% of the student body all has the exact same extracurricular, you have to do something different. But as a people, they're so robotic that they can't see it.
At some point it may not even be affirmative action but it may be that it is legitimately more interesting for an admissions officer to hear about a Hispanic student talking about how joining a mariachi band gave them character, rather than hearing about how the 37th chinese or korean in a row gain character through piano or being a math athlete. The dude in the second article was dancing around the literal white elephant in the room of unseating white people, but eloquently evaded it by saying "I still don't think affirmative action should go away completely" and "legacy admissions won't go anywhere"