(woo hoo! I got the quote thinggy to work!)
So I guess this is the crux of my question: there are still schools that have a capella football players and the like? From reading this forum, it sounds like kids only have room for one thing beyond coursework. Personally, I did nothing other than coursework, socializing and a part time job, and could never fathom how athletes made it work. Two EC’s seems rough.
Edited to add: I sure hope that the narrative of spikey kids is overblown. There just can’t be enough spikey kids to fill the “elite” schools, and it would make for some strange silo-ing of the student body.