My US experience, which is probably pretty typical, is some choice of core courses, choice of major, with some required and some options within that major. Undergrad I'm pretty sure I could have made choices that would have made it pretty much impossible for me to graduate and I could have made choices which--while they certainly wouldn't have made my undergraduate education trivial--would have made things easier.
I'm saying for almost every major there is a very easy path.
But I absolutely disagree if they're saying that there are tons of people who could grok the advanced first-year physics classes like Physics 16 @ Harvard who are just being turned away and also not getting into other similarly good schools.
