In practice, I feel you're right. It will simply devolve into a superficial display of maturity being used as the right metric while real, deeper signals are buried or ignored in the face of superficial counter-signal.
Worked as something of a TA in several high school computer courses (MS Business Applications, Programming (Basic), Programming (Java)) with many students of varying levels and competencies. Was quite a fond memory in quite a lot of ways. Schools should encourage more of that sort of thing and less batshit test prep. Unfortunately, true well-rounded human beings don't solicit eyeballs and award shows and budget dollars.
We used to have such a concept in my school system, it was called "tracking." Sadly, they did away with it midway through my sentence. We had AP / IB track courses, but also so many students that we had a second, more mature level in terms of both behavior and intellectual pursuit (at least for AP, I only took one IB course).
This track was cancelled (10+ years ago) in the modern progressive fashion, being derided as some blend of discrimination. The end-result was students who were into school being put into the same pot of students in the rest of the courses (non-AP, AP - your choice). Unfortunately for the tracked students, we were hit with a one-two punch of the end of tracking and the administration's pursuit of glory and State recognition. Our guidance counselors aggressively recommended or, in some cases, forcibly placed students in AP courses for which they had neither the interest nor the proclivity.
Personally, I was forced into a high-tier Spanish course my third (and final) year of high-school, despite having no aptitude and lower-end grades (80-85%) for the language despite three years of study. Resulted in my skipping all courses and writing my "Kiss My Ass" in another foreign language I pursued during my free time. I rode into the sunset with a grade of 30% or so, a job waiting for me in the city as an apprentice software engineer and a full-ride to university.
Frankly, schools in the US just don't seem to exist to put out good, well educated thinkers but like many government institutions (and I say this as a former government worker) - to continue their own existence, find glory for those at the top, and if good things happen for the citizens this is a nice side-effect and typically at the expense of the soldiers in the trench rather than good, altruistic stewardship.
Worked as something of a TA in several high school computer courses (MS Business Applications, Programming (Basic), Programming (Java)) with many students of varying levels and competencies. Was quite a fond memory in quite a lot of ways. Schools should encourage more of that sort of thing and less batshit test prep. Unfortunately, true well-rounded human beings don't solicit eyeballs and award shows and budget dollars.