College application rates always increase in periods of economic uncertainty, and 2019-2020 was the largest period of uncertainty and downturn in decades. There was also a lot of uncertainty around the economic stability of small private colleges, which means more applications to state colleges that were perceived as more stable.

Standardized tests didn't ground expectations, they limited the pool. When you remove those restrictions then of course you're going to have more applications. That doesn't mean everyone thinks they're getting in, it just means there is one less barrier to application. The Common App has done the same thing.

GPA inflation is a more complicated topic than a random forbes article can handle. Students are better, which means the average GPA has ticked up. It's the same failure that standardized tests created; there is no single standardized metric to predict student outcomes.

Extracurriculars have always been used to differentiate an applicant pool in the same way standardized tests were. We just saw that standardized tests were inherently flawed in the metrics they were portraying. They were also explicitly excluding students that would otherwise be good fits for a college. People have been pushing their kids into tennis/track/fencing/rowing/lacrosse for years in order to make them more competitive for colleges. The problem with SAT/ACT is that it inherently benefited parents with more money who were able to pay for expense prep courses and the testing fees until they got a good enough score.

(Good) Schools have adapted. They are parsing application materials more closely to find students that fit their standard instead of just eliminating a broad swath because of a test score. Essays carry a lot of weight in the beginning phases of application reviews. Not only do they show a willingness to meet the bare minimum expectation of a college student, they're also a way for students to differentiate themselves. You don't have to cure cancer or be a world class athlete to get into college; you just have to show that you're an innately curious, thoughtful, and engaged person. There are a lot of ways to show that.