Do you accept, @JHS , that there’s any correlation between studiousness and introversion, on the one hand, and EC participation and extroversion, on the other? I speak only of correlation, not deterministic certainty. To me the linkage seems rather obvious. We have Zimmerman in this article reinforcing the description by Deresiewicz in “Excellent Sheep” and the quoted words of the Harvard admissions officers in the Asian-American law suit (all of which is supported by the common wisdom here on cc) to the effect that it’s these EC’s that make you or break you with elite schools. Granting the existence of idiosyncratic outliers of the sort you describe, are these observers - and these kids - simply deluded in believing that for most of them it’s demonstrating their chops outside the classroom that really matters? If so, we would expect these kids, once admitted, to be less inclined toward the introverted activity of studiousness. That was the testimony of Pinker about Harvard kids. They are smart but too busy with ECs to be very interested in cracking books or even coming to class. Why should they be? That’s not what Harvard selected them for. Study is for introverts - shudder - and is lonely and unsocial and not “fun”. Losers like that don’t get into Harvard. Ah, but there’s at least one college where fun famously comes to die. Let it remain so. To a true introvert study is meat and drink and sustenance in the battle of life. And the dirty little secret is that, as Plato knew, it can be a hell of a lot sexier than playing volleyball.