@lookingforward. I totally understand what your saying. But it’s not always needed. If I am advising someone going into engineering I would definitely tell them to take some engineering “things”. My son did summer programs at universities to get a clue. During his Junior year he did
https://acementor.org/index.php/affiliates/illinois/chicago/about-us/
Which is a free program and you work in teams and are assigned an engineering discipline and work with other engineering disciplines plus it’s also a one on one mentorship with a real live engineer. My kids was from Georgia Tech…
But some kids just have good grades in math and science and don’t have an issue getting in.
My kids ec mostly were varsity chess team for 4 years (top ten team in the state) and shot put /throw in track. He had others but mixing it up and it doesn’t all have to be engineering types of things.