@SeniorStruggling, I think you are still missing something about the admissions process: LACs aren’t looking for a specific list of ‘wow’ things. They take all kinds of students- extroverts and introverts, athletes and bookworms.
In your eyes, my D2’s EC’s look no more ‘wow’ than your friend’s ECs (no NHS and only 2 years of jv xc for a start!). But her overall package, including essays and recs, got her admitted to colleges such as W&M, Oberlin, Kenyon, Vassar and more (with some nice merit packages/named scholarships).
It is not necessarily what your friend has done, but what she has done with those things. Was xc a struggle for somebody who had never competed? did she make it on to the jv team by dint of determination despite (x limitation)? Has she learned something about herself through babysitting?
There are different paths- you took one that worked for you- great! but your friend has to find her own one. Her best shot is to look into herself. She is a junior, she has decided that she wants something different than she thought she did. Her timing is great: she has this spring and summer to focus on what is important to her for her college experience, to look at what she has done and what she hasn’t done and what she wants to do about it. Her stats are strong and her interests are beginning to form.
Truly: it won’t be one ‘wow’ activity that gets her where she wants to go. It will be the maturing she does on the way, and what she pulls out of herself and puts forward as a whole package that will matter.