<p>I spoke to the Deans of Admission from Rhodes, Lehigh, Vanderbilt, and Princeton today. Interesting what they had to say.</p>
<p>Someone asked the question of whether it was better to have a couple strong interests or to spread yourself out. Contrary to what a lot CCers say, the dean who answered that question (I believe it was the one from Princeton) said suggested picking up a variety of extracurriculars and to be good "across the board." The argument was that if you're strong in one or two areas, it's likely someone else will have similar strengths. Thus, it's better to engage in many different activities to differentiate yourself. Bottom line was to try as many things you can.</p>
<p>Later, I spoke to the dean from Vanderbilt personally. I asked him what advice he had for me, someone who has a hard courseload and gets good grades, but doesn't really feel passionate about anything. He literally told me that people in college admissions throw around the word "passions" too much and called it "a load of crock" (his exact words). Basically, he said not to worry about all that because at age 17 or 18, nobody really knows who they are or what they want to do.</p>
<p>I think the concept of looking for passions in college applications is a mistake...for example a friend of mine who got in EA at Caltech is pretty bad at physics and not exceptionally gifted in math though he's definitely smart...his EC's that showed his math/science "passion" were SHARP and MITES...his participation in these activities was due to his parents' connections (already gotten two of his siblings into MIT) rather than his own great ability or curiosity (sort of a procrastinator, though I am happy for him that he got in)...I think that it's hard to have a developed passion by age 17 and that IN GENERAL the kids who can show a "passion" may be only trying to deceive adcoms or have been groomed by parents for that "passion" rather than have developed that passion on their own...i would hope adcoms can distinguish a real passion from a contrived passion as obviously there are many HS students with true passions, but I'm not sure that a paper application can reveal whose passion is genuine</p>