Well my son applied to and go into fine engineering schools - Florida, Purdue (with $10K merit), Maryland and more - and worked at Kroger (was his main EC) bringing in carts, stocking shelves.
They want diverse students - they want a tuba-ist and football player and coder and all these things. They want diversity, etc.
But I digress - truth is, a student has what they have. They put their best foot forward. They can’t create what they aren’t - so they go with what they have and give it their best shot.
Hopefully they will have rejections (I think everyone should - well unless they get into MIT, etc.) and they will have acceptances - hopefully some of which will work financially. That depends on the list one applies to).