<p>Bringing schools such as Caltech and MIT into the whole “well-rounded student” argument adds no actual substance. Of course schools like these want students with passion. They are highly specialized institutions and they want to make sure that the students they admit can survive in at a university which is so focused on science. </p>
<p>And being a well-rounded student is very important for a non-specialized school like UCSD. Although you may think that being a good writer or an amazing mathematician will be completely useless to you in whatever career you choose (although being a good writer is important for many jobs and life in general…), not having these skills will guarantee a very difficult time for you in college because of GEs. So being good in a variety of things will be a useful asset for college, and its there that being well rounded is important. And its institutions like the UCs that don’t have specialized curricula that want students that are good at many things and not necessarily focused on a single like. </p>
<p>And of course Stanford and Rice state they want passionate people. What are they going to say, they only want robots that work meaninglessly for all time?</p>