Just my opinion here ... but I think that today's kids are being rammed through a shallow education too fast, with no time for deep understanding. It looks advanced but it's really just a speed run through school.
Take calculus, for example. It used to be a nice capstone to your high school education, maybe a preview of your freshman year. Then, it wasn't enough to take calculus your senior year, you had to take AP Calc. Then, hey, let's split it into AB and BC. Of course, your talented kid needs to take BC right? AB must suck, it's like one less letter.
Some folks said, hey, not good enough, my kid needs to take it as a junior. That way their kid can get a 5, so that they can put that 5 on their college apps, so that they can get into a good school where ... upon arrival ... the parents will find that their burnt out kid needs only 2.5 more years of upper division classes to graduate.
However ... the kid never really learned mathematics but just skimmed over the top of it and learned the material for the test. Everyone needs to chill out and slow down, take the time to learn something really well, figure out their passion.
Last weekend, I was touring a college campus with my high school senior. The tour guide was an Industrial Engineering major. He said that he hated a LOT of his engineering classes, but that was great because it was helping him narrow down his interests. He said he loved a few of them, and that had taken him in a particular direction, and that was what he was going to do after school.