the kid in the Vox article could’ve stayed at his home school and have all the same college opportunities…
I think the reason this prof warned my kid off is because it is a school widely known for pre-med (you can probably guess which one). She indicated that she would LOVE to have a student who wasn’t just gunning for med school grades. She said research would definitely be available, just that the pre-med atmosphere maybe wasn’t the best place to foster an interest in research.
If Ethan is doing homework late into the night and only gets 5 hours of sleep, and if his ECs are genuinely important t him, he should not be taking the course load he currently has, at least not at his school. It’s just that simple.
On the public involvement front, my S accompanied me while I volunteered for groups such as NARAL and Maine Won’t Discriminate when he was little. He went to his first pro-choice demonstration in utero. B-) (He went to the polls so often that when he was about 5 he would dodge behind the living room curtains and say he was “voting.” 
) He is still very politically aware, and would never consider not voting, thank doG.
“Charitable” endeavors are another matter. When he got older, I took him to my monthly soup kitchen stint, not because I wanted him to be able to put it on his college resume, but because I wanted him to be in the habit of volunteering, and come into contact with people from all walks of life. He was not one of those kids who is naturally drawn to such activities, and I don’t think he does anything of that sort now, but at least he has experienced it. I hope that some day it will kick in.
My kid’s high school had a senior year volunteer project requirement (at least a specified number of hours with one organization and a poster session at the end… not exactly a project, even though they called it that). My kids both got a lot out of their experiences, I think. One volunteered in an election year for one of the state political party organizations, and went to multiple district conventions to help out. She learned a lot from that experience, and one of her college majors was political science. Her sister decided on a large regional food bank, and spent multiple Sundays at our local farmer’s market collecting produce from vendors at the end of the day. She also packed & labeled food in their warehouse, and handed out food at a food bank event at an inner city school. When we moved to our new state this year, she asked over winter break if we could find a food bank where we could volunteer. I think it was a good requirement from their school – not too onerous, I think it was something like 25 hours, and could start summer before senior year. Her classmates picked an interesting variety of organization or projects. But I don’t think a national requirement for college admissions would be a good idea… just one more item for strivers to go overboard on.
This is not like this is some major national problem.
It’s something that affects maybe .03% of US high school seniors each year.
(100,000 or so out of the 3.3 million US high school seniors).
There’s always going to be a tippy top, and that is always going to be difficult, stressful and painful to achieve. If it wasn’t . . . everyone would do it.
The vast, vast majority of kids (and parents) in the US and the world don’t get so worked up.