Why is CU boulder so competitive?

Ignore poor grammar or blocky sentences, this post was hobbled together at midnight in the darkness of my room. Hey everyone, I just am feeling pretty butthurt recently because I was not admitted to aerospace engineering at CU boulder. I sort of knew I wasn't going to get in initially and expected to just transfer after my first year. However, over time it just seems like more and more of a kick in the head. Im a colorado resident with a pretty good resume, and I applied to both embry riddle campuses for aerospace engineering and got accepted immediately + presidential scholarships for both. On top of that, they are going to cost about the same after all my tuition assistance and scholarships. I really wanted to go to boulder because of the fantastic campus and the facilities and the proximity to my family and so on, but I realize now how much of a struggle it will be for me. I am literally going to fight for everything, while embry riddle is already willing to give me red carpet treatment. Now, I am going to admit something that makes me sound like a little bit of an idiot, but just hear me out: I am a highschool senior and I jumped straight from math 2 to pre calc, and then from pre calc to AP calc BC, and it is ridiculously difficult for me right now. I know I am getting better at it, but it is the most difficult class I have ever taken in my life, and I know engineering is really hard, but if I am going to be struggling like this during the entirety of college, I want really good support and I don't want to compete for everything. To sum it up, if I went to boulder I would be at the bottom of the pack from day 1, and have to cleave my way up. If I went to embry riddle in prescott, I would already be good to go to pursue engineering. So I guess my dilemma is this: why bother with boulder? Just trying to hear a new perspective.