In a tough spot right now. Concerned about general hiring environments and what choices to make?

Currently in school, rising sophomore at a semi-target. Mostly concerned to see that a lot of the smart, well-prepared people didn't place as well as I thought they would for SA 2026. Has it been a tough year of recruiting, or is it just my school in particular? Will it get better next year? 

More so, I'm concerned about what to do in school as I would like to take more math classes, as its very rigorous comparatively, but they hurt your GPA a lot. The average in most classes is ~3.2. I have only taken one so far and did pretty average, so I'm at like a 3.85 right now. However, they only get harder, although the class GPA average stays roughly similar. Doing just average in these classes, will tank my GPA down a lot and very fast. I see most people on here say 3.7+ is fine, but I haven't seen a single person in my school get recruited with below a 3.85, and those in the 3.85-3.90 range, most of those people had something going for them, i.e. family connections, diversity, etc. So what should I do? To make things more complicated, I would like the option to apply to law school. So GPA has to be high for that too.  

tl;dr Dilemma between easy classes, with a high GPA and helps with recruiting, but just going through the motions of school, or harder classes, learn a lot but lower GPA, Please let me know your suggestions. Thinking about IB RX, and further down the line, maybe PE? Don't think MF PE is possible from what I've read, seems like realistically only HYPS and Ivy+ have a shot.