I’ve heard this called being a “spikey wheel” (I believe usually somewhat jokingly).
Most importantly, I have heard AOs say the same things about admitting a mix of spikey kids, well-rounded kids, spikey wheel kids, and so on. The idea they only want single-spike kids is usually described as a myth.
I think part of what is going on is that the most selective colleges do sometimes talk about kids “standing out” to them, the idea being they get so many generally well-qualified applicants, when they decide who they want to add to their college community, they are looking for kids who stood out in a way they could see making a strong contribution to that community.
But then some people translate that into needing some one type of activity–some people will even say it has to be related to your intended major–in which you have a lot of awards or other “impressive” achievements. And sometimes that might be it, but way more often than these people realize, it will be something about the person’s character that stands out. Of course being active in ways a college community would value might still be a basic consideration, it just might not be the way a given applicant stood out and got admitted.
This is extremely important advice. The most selective colleges that will barely admit you is not necessarily the best college for you.
As potentially relevant to the OP, I have over time started developing a sense of colleges that seem to really like academicky kids who then combine that with a variety of interesting activities. Again, it is important to understand this is not kids checking a lot of boxes they heard are good for college admissions, this is more kids that just come across as having diverse interests, an exploratory mindset, and so on. And because they are smart, creative, enthusiastic kids, they may do well in a variety of activities. But they are not really motivated by concepts like trying to be the best at one particular thing, they just want a lot of great experiences, maybe enjoy doing different things with friends, and so on.
Some of the colleges I have in mind are LACs, where I think kids like that can sometimes really thrive. But also some universities, including both private and public universities. Like just by way of example, William & Mary is on my list of such colleges, and it is a public–although a pretty unusual sort of public.
There are of course more and less selective versions of these colleges, but I am beginning to think mostly that is a matter of academics, and maybe also writing thoughtful essays and getting good recommendations. Point being, though, if everything else lines up, not being a single-spike sort of kid won’t be an issue. Not that they never take such kids, but they are perfectly happy to take a LOT of the sort of kid who is really going to squeeze the juice out of a college where there are lots of different things they could explore and potentially get involved in doing, both academically and non-academically.
OK, so if you think of selectivity in terms of the academic qualifications of their enrolled students, then these can be arbitrarily selective colleges. But if you think of it in terms of really low admit rates–that is a function of how many people apply, including uncompetitive applicants. And they may still be pretty selective in that sense, but maybe not the lowest. And that is because they are not necessarily flooded with a lot of applications from people who are treating such applications like buying a bunch of lottery tickets, where the prize would be getting into the most famous/popular college you can.
But again, it doesn’t make sense to me to assume that just because a college does not get as many lottery ticket applications, it must not be as good of a college for you. And I do think for some individual kids, maybe these sorts of colleges, the colleges actively looking for such kids, could be the better fits.