What I don't understand about banking

A lot of the old guys here say the following:

"Oh once you're below the Ivies you're really starting to trudge into low target zone! I thought Harvard was easy enough to get in with a 33 ACT (which would be application suicide in 2024) and a couple AP classes here and there back in 2006 so just do that and you should be fine. Why are the young'uns complaining so much about getting into college?"

"Oh IB isn't rocket science or intellectually stimulating at all it's just monotonous Excel formulas you don't need to be a genius to do to it. You'll learn most of it on the job FOCUS ON ENJOYING YOUR FOUR YEARS OF COLLEGE BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE A GUY WHO YOU'RE COWORKERS WOULDN'T GET BORED WITH AND WOULD WANT TO TALK TO." (how tf do u define that or balance that)?

"You should network your ass off with every alum and email you see starting sophomore yr and have technicals down cold BUT IF YOU'RE A HARDO GRINDER YOU WILL GET REJECTED CZ UR WHOLE LIFE IS DEDICATED TO IB AND THAT'S SUPER BAD CZ UR NOT INTERESTING OR CHILL IN THE OFFICE." (oxymoron much?)

"Oh to get IB just be a chill guy, play a sport in college (which obviously not everyone has the time or skills to do), and keep in touch with the people from your prep school."

Then if the job is so easy to actually get as per the words of current VPs, why tf are IB acceptance rates for all banks sub 1%, you have thousands of T30 students (mind you, a random T30 is much harder to get in than Harvard in the 1990s or early 2000s since most of them have average HS GPAs of 3.9 with like 15 APs and avg SATs of 1500) grinding technicals for 2 summers on end, sending out 100 emails per week for networking, and busting their ass to get into the student funds and finance clubs.

Keep in mind, they all have insanely long recruitment processes + ridiculously low acceptance rates (ESPECIALLY in top publics like McIntire, Ross, and UCLA), and are the surest way of getting into BB/EB IB at such schools. Not to mention, a lot of these college banking clubs require insanely good, altruistic rationales for why IB and will reject if ur motivation is just "money and exit opps."

And all this done just to simply land BNP Paribas or Baltimore boutiques lmfao? Cz the deal cycle "was bad?" Why are banks so selective for a lil tuxedoed Excel monkey talking to some clients?

On top of that, ur autorejected from a lot of banks for having a 3.699 even though many targets/semitargets are known for grade deflation (Chicago, Middlebury, Swarthmore, UNC) + curves (i.e 35% capped As at Goizueta, Stern, and Ross). On the other hand, a 3.9+ is seen as too grindy and people here say "these kids r bots so we autoreject them too." Where tf do u draw the line between a "bro" and a "hardo?" 

It is shocking to me how for the people that are trynna recruit now, it seems so insanely hard, toxic, and competitive with lifestyles rivaling premeds (which is what my UNC chemistry friend told me about Kenan Flagler gunners), whereas for the people in the job rn, they talk as if they liked it and waltzed in one day after their D3 golf coach, who was a former Goldman MD, organized a mock resume drop midway through senior year and just took all his athletes for fun to his bank.

I may be wrong on some of the aforementioned statements, but I hope you get my main point and someone can shed some light on the situation. 

tl;dr - the current bankers all say that that u dont need to be a genius to do IB, that you just need to know basic accounting and all, and you should never sacrifice an inkling of college for it, then why tf is it so hard?