Remember how every application was different and needed different essays and things? Nowadays it's one common application (My kid did it a couple of years ago).
The old system was self-limiting in the number of schools you could reasonably apply to but now you can apply to as many schools as you have the application fees for.
The old system was self-limiting in the number of schools you could reasonably apply to but now you can apply to as many schools as you have the application fees for.