My daughter is that type of well rounded- follows her multiple passions, spent over 7,000 hours in high school on sports and was multiple sport state champion- sports that she will continue only in club in college, pushed herself academically (as a homeschooler, that mostly meant DE), lots of various volunteering, artist, model, dancer… basically all over the darn place. She’s also always voted most supportive, team captain, team big sister, etc… her kindness and curiosity shine through. I worried that she wasn’t spiked enough- especially without tippy top test scores, but she landed at the right school for her with ease- that was a small LAC that is all about community and fit.
I recall that at the time my son was applying for college one admissions director referred to their looking for “well lopsided” applicants. These would be students who had particular strengths rather than being a jack-of-all-trades.
But I think it’s important to look distinguished or distinctive in SOMETHING (or more than one thing) that sets the applicant apart from the crowd. That could be shown by awards or “wins” in some particular curricular or extracurricular area. There is no need to show excellence in everything.
I love the success stories!
While the super spikey stories are amazing, the success seems so … predictable. The kids who have multiple strengths— their futures seem more open-ended and are what they make of them. Glad to know they are appreciated as the gems they are, and not square pegs being forced in the round holes made by the spikes of others.
I think the spike narrative is overblown. Colleges are looking for interested and interesting students. That said, the higher ranked colleges like to see fairly serious accomplishments in something EC related. I had a kid with broad interests and a lot of activities, but she had a couple where she was in the top 5 in our state (one a fairly competitive academic EC, the other a sport that is not especially competitive in our state).
She had high test scores and excellent admissions results - got in e every place she applied. But… she also had a sensible list, with schools ranging from a top 5 national university to a LAC ranked around #60. All were chosen for fit, and the schools probably could tell that was the case.