my high school was specializing in math and physics
and it was one of the best in the country. it was basically
equivalent to first two years of college. and it made it
easy for me to pass the entrance exams into one
of the best universities in the country. if I did not get into
that high school, there's no way I'd get into the top university.
and after all that it was fairly trivial for me to get into a decent
grad school in the US.

so, the system was not uniform. there was a small number of elite schools
teaching kids perfect English, deep math, etc, preparing them
for top colleges, etc. but those schools were
not really open to the general public. you had to pass a
difficult entrance exam, like some of my friends,
or like me to have a grandma who pulled some strings
and voila I was accepted after failing the exam